


The Bad Sleep Well -9- Three Blind Mice

by sharkcar



Series: The Bad Sleep Well [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22477561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.1- The Farmer's Wife- Women are keeping Rex busy2- Their Tails- Wolffe feels like he's just chasing3- The Carving Knife- Vader gets blind-sided
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex & CC-3636 | Wolffe
Series: The Bad Sleep Well [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334464
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	1. The Farmer's Wife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Cut and his wife, Suu is the more likely to shoot someone.

Saleucami  
  
“Those aren’t the instructions, that’s the purchase receipt, numbwit,” Sh’ehn pretended to hit his younger foster brother on the back of the head. He then went back to arranging the spare helmets in a drawer. Helmet drawer. Right above the belt and bandolier drawer. Across from the gun drawer. They liked to keep things orderly in the DQA.  
  
“We have to figure out where the water source is, Cody said it was probably some type of well,” Goran piloted the ship while Victory handed out uniforms for a popular freight company, Moonlight Transit.  
  
“The fixtures are supposedly standard to be compatible, I’m sure I can rig something up,” Victory read the back of the box of the wash machine they were supposed to deliver to a farm, for the express purpose of making an already silly cover story more convincing by doing something twice as silly. Typical.  
  
“So we get this thing set up, then what?” Stabbi organized his box of tools. He was ethnically Mando, so he always joked that it was weird that he knew how to use tools. Their standard joke was that all most Mando could think of when they saw a hammer was where on a guy’s face to hit with it. The most common responses were ear or nose. Stabbi still knew how to get both ear and nose in one swipe, though, because tools are versatile.  
  
“Rendezvous on Seelos. Cody said he didn’t know how many people might need evacuating,” Goran chuckled to himself about the double meaning of the phrase. He resolved to put it into lyrics somehow. He was glad it rhymed with so much.  
  
\--  
  
Cut was outside of his house, sitting on the front porch, long range rifle beside him. A cold lager in his hand. In the final days before harvest season, the healing herb farmers had to defend their crops from pirates every year. Out where he lived, away from any concentrated settlement, it was best not to attract attention.  
  
Cut was on the porch of his home, the place he was proud to have lived most of his life. Not a major plantation or anything, just a piece of space to call his own. The place in the universe that he had made better.  
  
It was hard work sometimes, staying afloat all by themselves. But Shaeeah had really stepped up. She was teaching herself all about the business angle of husbandry and crop yields. They were comfortable.  
  
Cut and Suu had made no secret of their desire for grandchildren, but Shaeeah had not shown any interest. Jek, of course, had run off to Coruscant at first opportunity. He had quite the life there, from what he told them. It sounded like chaos. Cut never found it lonely that he had so few people to talk to. He actually found it peaceful.  
  
An aged eopie with a collar lay beside him. The creature stirred and flicked its trunk at the newcomers.  
  
“What is going on with the galaxy, Declan? I haven’t seen another son of Jango in a decade, now they’re all crawling out of the woodwork,” Cut grumbled to the eopie and patted its side. Cut stood and picked up the gun. “Help you, brother?” Cut addressed Victory, since the others stayed behind him.  
  
“We’re here to deliver the clothes washing machine. You know, the prize for that short story contest with that pornographic periodical. Also a crate of soap for it. Where should we hook it up?” Victory handed Cut the purchase order, which identified the source of the prize as an entertainment company based on Corellia. It bore a com signature. Cut didn’t have any communications equipment anymore that was capable of inter-planetary transmissions. They’d gotten rid of it after Rex, Wolffe and Gregor had left. Even Cut’s son on Coruscant had to sent packages and letters by courier post or telefax. People picked things up in town, a few hours away by speeder. So it was weird that these people appeared at his home directly. Cody had done the same. Cut’s location was apparently known. It wasn’t something he welcomed.  
  
Suu came out onto the porch, “I can set it up, just leave it. I’m not even sure there is enough water in the well. We’ll probably just sell it.” Suu knew scams that ran out on rural worlds. People try to gain access to your house and then kill the lot of you. More recently, there were rumors of electronics being rigged with listening devices or cameras.  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Victory backed away obediently. All the Twi’lek women in his family were formidable, so he just assumed she was the more likely of the two to kill him. She had a gun too.  
  
They unloaded the clothes washer and the crate of soap. Vic didn’t dare ask her to sign for it. “Uh, just make sure you get the soap indoors before it rains.”  
  
He saluted his brother.  
  
\--  
  
On the way off world, Stabbi complained, “How are you going to explain how you karked up that mission?”  
  
Vic swatted him, “I stuck exactly to protocol. The mission was not intelligence gathering in nature. You know the law, we’re not allowed to spy on our own brothers. So we are merely allowed to make contacts. If he takes the time to check the com signature, it will mean he’s curious. In which case we’ve made a contact, we could maybe reach out. As it stands, he clearly doesn’t want to talk to us.”  
  
“Eh. We probably would have just asked to use the pisser and put listening devices in their house anyway,” Goran joked.  
  
Vic crossed his arms and flashed the gold ring, “And that is why I am in charge of this mission.”  
  
–

  


Seelos

  


Rex hadn’t slept well the night before. He and Kallus were leaving in the morning to pick up some equipment and another recruit. Rex always tended to have anxiety before a journey. His body had always anticipated having to get up early, and so it never fully shut down.  
  
He was concerned that Wolffe had to be put in charge of keeping the walker on the move until they got back. He said he’d be fine, but Wolffe was barely talking to anyone. He’d just stare at the sky a lot. When Rex asked him about it, he’d mumbled something about ‘storms’.  
  
The night was warm, so Rex didn’t want to sleep inside. He lay awake on a jumpsuit cushion on the newly installed landing platform, sleeping under the desert sky, encircled by the starry dome. It was quiet. Their lights were all shut down. The walker’s running systems only hummed a dull low tone that sounded to Rex like a huge stone ball rolling. But otherwise, the sensory deprivation was pretty total. Rex closed his eyes and thought.  
  
He knew why Vader was after him. That was clear. He knew things or could attest to events. Mortis and Ahsoka. The Order. The chips. Collusion with the Confederacy from the beginning. The Imperial machine was trying to dictate history. It all pointed to one person’s priorities. The one person who had benefited the most from the conspiracy. The one Kenobi had warned Skywalker against. Rex was sure who had really killed Skywalker. Regardless of who had actually been the agent that had ended the General’s life. The Empire’s official position was that they had no idea what had become of General Skywalker. The new Emperor was doing his best to eradicate the name.  
  
Rex remembered, though. As long as he lasted, his stories would live on. Rex was sure he was a credible witness. He was not afraid to speak the truth.  
  
Too bad nobody ever asked him any questions.  
  
\--  
  
Wolffe was the first one up in the morning. He seemed a little startled to see Rex there outside when he came outside for a smoke of herbs.  
  
Wolffe looked like he expected a confrontation. Wolffe perceived disappointment from Rex that he could dare command while medicated.  
  
Rex decided instead to make conversation, “Cut still sending you that?”  
  
Wolffe looked offended, but he just shrugged stiffly. Among clones that was communication enough.  
  
“How is he?” Rex persisted.  
  
Then Wolffe made a jump in conversation that seemed unrelated, but not to be in Wolffe’s mind.  
  
“Rex when are we getting the hell off this world?” A smoke always made Wolffe braver. He said it was because his joints didn’t hurt so much, he could stand up straight and look a person in the eye.  
  
“A few days ago all you wanted to do was stay,” Rex looked like he took it as a compliment, that Wolffe was coming around to his point of view.  
  
“Look, I don’t want to just wait here to be captured,” Wolffe drew on his pipe and passed it to Rex.  
  
Rex took it to be polite. He didn’t want to seem like a narc or hypocrite, since he had worked on Cut’s farm growing the stuff. He had enjoyed it in the past.  
  
Then Wolffe surprised his brother. “We won’t be able to out-run anything in this and one TIE fighter would blow us to pieces in seconds. Never mind anything with bigger guns. That’d end your little mission here real quick. The less time we spend as sitting ducks, the better I like it.”  
  
Rex drew on the pipe and pondered. This was a Wolffe he knew. Commander Wolffe the strategist. Commander Wolffe who took what he did seriously. Rex wondered why he found that somewhat threatening.  
  
Rex answered honestly, “I’m doing the best I can.”  
  
Wolffe accepted the pipe back, he tapped out the ash, “And I can’t be anything more than what I am.”  
  
Rex wondered if he was supposed to know that that meant.  
  
\--  
  
Kallus noticed Rex was a bit red eyed that morning, “I’ll fly.”  
  
Rex gratefully sat in the co-pilot seat. The last thing Rex could remember was the hyperspace time lag had hit him hard around the Atravis sector.  
  
He told Kallus he needed to go lie down for a minute.  
  
Rex realized he could safely be tired. No Hondo with them to guard. No need to work twice as hard as anybody else to try to set an example. None of Wolffe’s nonsense. None of Gregor nagging for the next meal. Rex just needed a few minutes to close his eyes.  
  
The insides of his eyelids were funny to look at. Like there were white flakes swirling in the black. They stilled in place like an archive map around him. Rex grew frustrated struggling to find some recognizable system from which to draw reference.  
  
Then a voice vibrated the hairs in his ears, but he could not sense where the sound came from. It seemed to be all around him. It said one word, an imperative command.  
  
“See!”  
  
Suddenly darkness descended and from it a scene formed out of glowing red mist.  
  
General Kenobi stood over a charred, mutilated body. The cooked flesh sizzled grimly. The distinctive metal hand sparked recognition. The shock of it felt like someone had reached up into Rex and pulled out his viscera like stuffing from a puppet.  
  
“I loved you!” Kenobi screamed at the squirming torso. Past tense.  
  
Kenobi picked up a familiar light saber and he walked away, growing indistinct as he disappeared into the dark.  
  
Rex felt himself falling without light or direction or sense. Just the horror. Because he knew it was true. As if he had seen it with his own eyes, he knew it to be real. The Force told him so.  
  
Rex could not draw a breath to give voice to the realization. He was choking silently. He was bound as if by a cord and he could not break the connection. Like a chain around his neck.  
  
Rex awoke to a room filled with light. A small room, like the quarters aboard ship. He knew it was familiar space. His room. But he wasn’t alone.  
  
That face exactly as he always remembered. Her features highlighted with light from a sun they were passing outside viewport.  
  
For some reason, Rex didn’t find it odd that she was there. It felt just like it was always meant to be. The way it always had been in dreams. The kind that didn’t pass.  
  
“I’m so glad you were able to rescue me,” Lina sighed.  
  
Rex sensed that he knew the story. Yes. That was how it was. He’d rescued her. Of course he had. His chest warmed. He went to her. Alone at last, he began to undress her, the love of his life. He felt his face grow flushed.  
  
Suddenly the door panel slid open and Alis was standing on the other side.  
  
Rex thought fast and tried to cover Lina up. “It’s not what it looks like,” he tried feebly.  
  
“I’ve seen them,” Alis laughed. She turned to someone in the hallway. “Yup.”  
  
“Just like I said, huh?” Wolffe’s voice cackled. “Although, knowing Rex, he probably just proposed marriage.”  
  
Another voice, with a Ryloth accent answered, “Why haven’t you ever asked me to marry you?”  
  
“I call best man,” Gregor’s voice spoke up.  
  
“No way! I’ve known him longer than you!” Wolffe’s voice protested.  
  
Lina closed the door panel and locked it from the inside. Then she returned to his arms.  
  
Rex didn’t even question why he didn’t remember the rescue. Or why Lina was still wearing the same clothes as the last time he saw her. The last time he had held her and undressed her. The love of his life, another man’s wife. It didn’t matter.  
  
–  
  
Suddenly, he awakened from a jolt to the ship. It had knocked him off the bed and onto the floor. Rex cursed his bruised hip. Then he remembered.  
  
He rushed to the mirror in the room. Familiar bruises on his neck. Familiar to anyone who was used to treating field injuries in an age of Force wielders. When the tactics were taken seriously and treated, instead of dismissed as frantic ravings and personal abuse from some kind of brain disease or parasites. Rex wouldn’t dare tell anyone, not even Ezra, until he could determine the source of the attack.  
  
He braced himself against the sink. The saliva in his mouth dried menacingly, his stomach threatened vomit.  
  
He hit the com, “Kallus, what is happening up there?”  
  
Kallus’ voice over the com came from the bridge, “I’m not sure. It looked like we were struck by lightning.”  
  
“Anything is possible,” Rex was covered in sweat, but he was cold. It was as if a fever had broken.  
  
“The funny thing is, it seemed to come from the ship. Possibly static electricity build up,” Kallus proposed.  
  
Rex rubbed his eyes and thought to himself, ‘It wasn’t real.’ Yet that second dream had seemed so possible. Like it was almost an offer.  
  
–

  


Dantooine 

  


Rex went through some of the crates of supplies they were salvaging from the old Rebel base. There were lots of things worth salvaging if only just to not be wasteful. The Rebels actually had a lot of need for fresh clothes. Some kids just went without crucial things. Rex spent a lot more time than he cared to admit stitching up clothes and darning socks for them, since not many of the Rebels knew how to sew.  
  
Rex had been looking to get a change of clothes himself ever since Eriadu. Mainly because he didn’t want to be recognized. And also mainly because he was tired of Hondo and Melch showing everyone that holo-novela with the Captain Rex character who walked around in armor all the time. Wolffe started writing fan fiction about the program that had the Rex character hooking up with every possible other character, a few objects, and some abstract concepts like his own inflated ego, or his own tragic backstory.  
  
Rex took himself out a practical set of attire from a supply crate. The only visible armor components he maintained were on his forearms. Only people who really knew him would recognize those. THE Captain Rex was a one of a kind, not some corporate creation.  
  
Rex grew worried that maybe the helmet was a little nod to vanity. But decided that for him, the helmet was actually a downgrade from his previous field gear. By war’s end, the full weight of his suit of armor and equipment had gotten upwards of twenty-five kilograms, standard grav unit. Add an extra 35 for kit and it was quite a burden if he was being honest.  
  
Captain Rex tried out his new stuff in front of his grooming mirror. He looked at himself from a few different angles, made sure everything was tucked just enough, took a moment to appreciate all the stomach weight he’d lost, then nodded just a little.  
  
–

  


Garel

  


Ketsu had secured her ship in a hangar lockup. She walked to the correct bay and found them there waiting beside the Ghost.  
  
“Was he where I said?” she slapped hands with Rex in greeting.  
  
“You knew just where to look. All that bounty hunting experience, no doubt,” Rex stood up straighter in the presence of a lady. The first non-Kaminoan women most clones had ever seen all out-ranked them. The reaction was far ingrained enough to be automatic. And she was Mandalorian, so so damn tough.  
  
“He keeps sending me his coordinates like an invitation. Ever since we met, that tosser has been drunk dialing me long winded messages and holograms of his dick. I don’t know how he got my holo-com signature, probably stole somebody’s device.”  
  
Kallus smiled and shook her hand, “Probably Zeb’s, he loses everything.”  
  
Rex grumbled, “He probably needed a ride, too. That smuggler talks like his prowess is good enough to be used as currency.” At the time, Rex hadn’t thought Hondo literally believed it. But probably nothing would surprise him.  
  
Ketsu shook her head and rolled her eyes, “I’ll take it as an invitation to kicking him in that gnarly man root when I see him.”  
  
“Rex’s brother punched him in the nose over breakfast,” Kallus told her.  
  
Rex scratched the back of his head. He didn’t want Ketsu to think he and his brothers fit the old clone stereotype that they were some kind of violent savages.  
  
Thankfully, Ketsu did not ask why. She was Mandalorian. And anyone who’d met Hondo Ohnaka would think that would be self-apparent.  
  
“Good, he’s warmed up for me,” was all she said.

  


–  
  
Seelos  
  
They descended through the atmosphere and Rex hit the com button. “Ghost to Joopa base, do you copy? Joopa base, are you there?”  
  
“Where the hell else we gonna be? You took the starship,” Wolffe grumbled back. Then he assumed his normal com attitude, “This is Joopa base, please proceed to coordinates 80085.”  
  
‘Oh, great,’ Rex thought. Wolffe was already in a mood.  
  
–  
  
They landed the ship on the new platform, Wolffe was waiting for them there, fists on his hips. As soon as Rex was at the top of the boarding ramp, Wolffe could contain himself no longer.  
  
“Kindly tell Piglet and Poodoo to keep the hell out of my things!” Wolffe was outwardly extremely irritable. Which meant inside, he was livid.  
  
Rex had hoped Hondo would have run out of K-Town alcohol by the time he needed to leave Wolffe in charge of him. Rex couldn’t smell the spice Hondo, Melch and Gregor were smoking whenever he wasn’t looking. He didn’t have much sense of smell left.  
  
Wolffe, meanwhile, was at war with the cells of his own body, screaming out for the familiar compounds.  
  
Rex walked to Wolffe and patted his shoulder, “I’ll handle it.”  
  
Wolffe scowled, “Oh, I already did. I buried his spice tins in the desert. He tried to steal my player pod as some compensation.”  
  
“That old thing? That model is barely worth thirty credits,” Kallus looked dubious.  
  
Wolffe looked ready to fight.  
  
Rex gave Wolffe their reassuring face, “I’ll handle it, I said!”  
  
Ketsu joined their circle, “What are we talking about?”  
  
Wolffe’s face lit up immediately as he stood up straighter.  
  
It occurred to Rex he might have it handled already.  
  
“Hondo’s inside, let’s have him join us, shall we?” Rex raised an eyebrow. “Oh Hondo,” he called.  
  
–  
  
Hondo doubled over and fell comically onto his face. It really hadn’t been a fair fight. Ketsu had kicked him so hard Wolffe thought something might have ruptured. That thought brought him joy.  
  
Wolffe pointed at him and faced Rex, “You see? I’m not defective, this man is extremely unpleasant to be around. What kind of people are these friends of yours, Jango Junior?” Wolffe then involuntarily switched to that crisper accent clones used when dealing with natural born authorities. He then walked over to Ketsu and saluted, “Commander Wolffe. You probably hear this a lot, but damn girl, I bet when you slap a guy, he stays slapped until next week.”  
  
“If you need someone slapped, I still freelance,” Ketsu raised an eyebrow. “Care for a free sample?”  
  
“Baby, you couldn’t handle me,” Wolffe raised his eyebrows at her twice. “But you’re welcome to try.”  
  
She drew back...  
  
“Oh, what in the happy hell is going on here?” Gregor groaned when he turned up and saw them all standing there. Well, all except Hondo, since he was still on the ground.  
  
Gregor looked at Rex, “What kind of people are these friends of yours?”

  


–  
  
Archeon Pass, Lothal Sector

  


“Did Hera say how she was getting off world?” Alexsandr asked.  
  
“Said she’d let us know. Imps are watching everything. No offense,” Rex said, by way of a joke. He had fallen into a more familiar routine with his ersatz partner. He could tease him a little without fear. For Rex that was a big step to take with a natural born person, never mind a former enemy.  
  
“None taken,” Alexsandr had noticed the gesture. He did not respond in kind with any of the dozens of words he knew Imperials had called Rex’s people. Whereas the term Rex had used referred to who the people chose to work for, most words for ‘Fett clone’ referred to some aspect of how they’d been made. One of the standard terms, for instance, was ‘deig’, which was an old word meaning something manufactured or artificial. Another one Kallus had heard clones even call each other was ‘defective’. It was a term that implied factory rejects.  
  
Rex had never joked at Kallus for something he couldn’t change. The way Kallus’ former Imp colleagues did. That acceptance meant more than Alexsandr felt comfortable expressing with Captain Rex, or most people in general. An upbringing during the rise of the Empire tended to leave people emotionally repressed.  
  
Alexsandr tried to be reassuring, “I used to command this blockade. It’s full of holes.”  
  
Rex shuddered at the image of a bunch of holes.  
  
Kallus noticed, but didn’t say anything. He found it a little cute. As a former interrogator, Kallus had been trained to notice the little tells that gave away details about a person. The ones they weren’t aware of. Especially things that could be used against people. He was unaccustomed to using the skill for empathy.  
  
“Captain, I...would like to thank you. For helping to make the peace with the other soldiers and me. I realize it is not an easy thing, to stick your neck out like that,” Kallus felt he could relate to Captain Rex as a commanding officer if nothing else. He certainly had skills to get the job done. The working dynamic was fair territory, he hoped. “They really trust your leadership. They’re good men,”  
  
Rex hadn’t expected that to hurt, but it did for some reason. Like a sudden dull jab to the sternum. Outwardly, he did not react. He simply responded, “They’re the best.”  
  
Rex realized the feeling was guilt. He didn’t feel it often, he’d tried to make choices he was proud of. But sometimes there was just no way to do everything you knew you should. You make compromises. Ones that actually show other people what your priorities really are. That way, you could hurt someone by doing nothing at all.  
  
He tried to redirect attention from himself, “So what about you? You have family?”  
  
Kallus smiled to himself, his interrogator skills had served him again, even if he hadn’t gotten the Captain talking, at least he was willing to listen. Like friends did. It wasn’t matching sports watching shirts, but it was a start.  
  
“I applied to the Republic Academy to get away from them. They weren’t terribly accepting. And I just got so tired of lying to them. My brother once told me that if he had a sissy son like me he would shoot him dead. It’s probably why my marks were so good. I never left the barracks over holidays and as long as I excelled, I received scholarships from the state so I didn’t need to depend on my family. School was a refuge.”  
  
Rex didn’t respond, he just nodded a little.  
  
Truthfully, that sounded funny to Rex. The ‘academy’ Rex and his brothers had been raised in was part prison, part factory farm. But his entire family had been in there with him, so school was home. They’d been confined to drawers at night, cleaned by wash conveyers, camera monitored, and herded by droids carrying electrostaffs. Rex’s marks had been outstanding because he expected that would be his means of advancement away from that place to somewhere he could decide things for himself. He knew plenty of his brothers who lived and died and had never seen anything but Kaminoan rain clouds above their heads. Being perfect was his one shot. It had been General Skywalker who had made him sure of what he believed, that you could change things if you worked hard enough at it.  
  
Rex’s present company didn’t hold a candle, he supposed. If he was honest with himself, all of his relationships these days seemed to require so much caution on his part.  
  
Yet, Rex’s general and he had been natural friends. It had been easy knowing how to be around him. He knew because Skywalker had immediately made Rex feel that they were equals, like real brothers. Rex had always judged people by those standards after that. If someone treated him the way Skywalker did, with that kind of respect, Rex knew he could recognize which natural born people were good. If Skywalker trusted someone, Rex knew there was a good reason. So he did too.  
  
Although, there were some obvious exceptions. One glaring exception, actually. Rex had just never mentioned it, because the person they didn’t see eye to eye on was the Commander in Chief. To say what he thought of the man might be a teensy bit treasonish. At least for a clone, it would have seemed ungrateful to the eyes of the free citizens of the Republic.  
  
“As a former true believer in the Dream of the Empire, maybe you can tell me something, Kallus, I just have to know,” Rex hadn’t expected to have it come out so hostile.  
  
Alexsandr was actually grateful for a chance to explain.  
  
“Did you really believe all that crap about Sheev being brilliant, wise and all-knowing, and benevolent? He was so obviously creepy to me. I thought everyone who believed in him had to be lying to me and knew they were, but would insist on the lie because they believed I had no say in the matter contradict them.”  
  
Rex had never seen what the draw was. Rex felt he was being ineloquent, like trying to draw a picture in the dark. It had constantly surprised Rex that Skywalker had preferred the word of the Chancellor over Fives in the single darkest moment of Rex’s life, and he just could never reconcile it. He had always thought Skywalker had been tricked, but he had never seemed the weak minded type.  
  
“I think I remember believing it. When I was a youngling, I suppose. People like me grew very attached to him, especially those of us who didn’t get much positive attention from adults. We were taught to love him, our instructors in school showed us approval if we showed feeling while reciting the Pledge of Loyalty every morning towards his picture and the flag. It was wartime, he was always on the holo-net reassuring us. Telling us he cared for our needs and felt our suffering,” Kallus had adopted a somewhat sarcastic tone about it.  
  
“Yeah, I bet he felt it, felt it with the tip of his forked tongue as he lapped it up. Evil people thrive on the suffering of others,” Rex was trying to be vulgar. That was about the best he could do, at least around a natural born.  
  
“You make it sound as if he’s Jabba the Hutt or something. He’s just a typical dictator, he only cares for keeping power,” Kallus shrugged. He didn’t seem to share Rex’s visceral disgust.  
  
“Keeping power so that he can act with impunity over everybody, so that he’ll be free to act on any impulse, no matter how deranged,” Rex felt a little dizzy and his body tensed as he stood his ground.  
  
“So you think power automatically makes people sadistic?” Kallus asked.  
  
“Only sick people crave power like that. Name me a few good examples of where they weren’t?” Rex was ready to have a good historical discussion, he had his sources and examples all ready.  
  
Alexsandr relented and redirected, “Well, his persona that he projected during the war was very benevolent. He used simple words, even we understood. As children, we liked to be talked to. His face was on screens everywhere we went. Always there, like a permanent presence. Telling us he cared. Children love easily.”  
  
Rex’s people had been the first who were made to recite the Pledge of Loyalty every morning. As a child he had often had a lump in his throat while reciting it with all sincerity. There was no one person associated with it. Just words. ‘The Republic’. For Rex, reciting that pledge every day had been an act of prayer. But to what he was directing his devotion, he was free to imagine for himself. He was praying for his chance. To an institution that he imagined would allow him. A system that he believed would provide opportunities to earn the things he deserved.  
  
When he’d finally met the dear leader of the Republic, Rex had been very disappointed, he didn’t seem to live up to what the apex of the cosmos Rex had pictured should be. Not like Skywalker.  
  
Kallus smiled piteously, “I didn’t meet the Emperor until after the war. He did fewer public appearances because of his health, he was very frail after the assassination attempt. Even then we had an affection for him and what he had gone through on the State’s behalf.”  
  
“It’s an act,” Rex shook his head.  
  
“What makes you think that? He was attacked by Mace Windu, I’ve seen it myself, the security camera footage shows it,” Kallus drew his eyebrows together as if he suddenly felt a headache.  
  
“I know because I know! I’ve seen him,” Rex felt defensive. Clones were usually considered bad witnesses. He didn't expect Alexsandr to believe him. “He’s got this other...face, not one you can see with eyes, but you can feel it, like a stink on his cells as they rot,” Rex realized he was sounding as insane as Fives had by the end. He sighed, “Look, I know what kind of image he projected, and I knew what he was like, I was assigned to guard him in private before during an assassination alert. He kept trying to corner me, it felt like. It made me very uncomfortable. He kept asking me to describe my dreams to him, he had a lot of questions about the violent stuff. I can’t describe the look in his eyes as anything but hungry. Believe me or not, but I never would have been tempted to side with that guy on anything willingly. I know he was involved in my brother Fives’ death. I know why Fives was killed.”  
  
“All dictators do things like that. They silence people who speak out against them. It doesn’t mean they enjoy it. He’s probably half in dementia right now. I hear rumors that Mas Amedda is really running things. Or there was the old joke that Minister Binks was controlling the Emperor like a large hand puppet,” Kallus smiled.  
  
“You guys joked about His Worship?” Rex was incredulous.  
  
“Of course,” Alexsandr looked almost hurt, “We were still human.”  
  
“Weren’t you afraid someone would report you?” Rex and the other clones always had to worry about natural born navy guys catching them at things they weren’t supposed to be saying. Or, later in the war, Tarkin’s secret military police force would investigate claims of disloyalty and send brothers away for ‘reprogramming’.  
  
“The only time people were reported for such typical day to day behavior was if someone had it out for you anyway. You could always beat them to it, if you wanted to. Everyone joked around. It was better to try to stay out of disputes if we wanted to reduce our citations for light blasphemy.”  
  
‘Light blasphemy’? Rex found that interesting. Clones would never have thought of joking about The Republic or its leader at work. They spent time in Academy Loyalty Classes writing essays about how The Republic was always right. No one had ever thought to take that anything less than seriously because if they tried to question seeming contradictions, they could be hit with electrostaffs by merciless droids. Rex was surprised to find life in the Empire seemed to allow more freedoms in some regards than Rex had had when the galaxy was ruled by a supposed democracy. As long as you were born the ‘right way'.  
  
Rex checked the time.  
  
Suddenly, the holo-com crackled and an indistinct figure appeared, composed of cubes. “Rex do you read? I’m smuggling myself aboard a supply freighter. But I need to get off before they go into hyperspace to who knows where.”  
  
“Hera! Anything you need, just say it!” Rex brought the ship about.  
  
“Be at the coordinates I’m sending and look for my escape pod,” she commanded. She forwarded the freighter’s id code directly to the secure channel on Rex’s helmet com. 

  


Lothal  
  
“Once the freighter passes, we’ll only have seconds to grab her pod before we’re detected. We’ll have to make the jump quickly. She won’t be able to turn on any systems, she’ll just be coasting with air jets,” Rex had no doubt that the General could do it. “All she has to do is steer it within range of our magnetic clamps and we’ll pick her up.” Rex, of course, was manning the clamps.  
  
The Ghost was sitting hidden behind an orbiting communications station. There was so much chatter coming and going that their presence didn’t register much. They couldn’t get much nearer to the planet’s surface with all the blockade ships. So they just sat by the side of the on-ramp to a space lane and watched the ships drift past slowly, in line to be given the clear to make the jump. Traffic was slow because of the blockade.  
  
Rex took off his perfectly justified head covering and grabbed his Phase II GAR helmet to look through the viewport. He didn’t have to turn on ship scanners, the helmet visor zoomed in for him and allowed him to check the markings on the side of the approaching freighter.  
  
“That’s it there, get ready,” Rex stood and went to the ladder to the cargo hold. He descended the ladder, only hitting his helmet once. He felt more right than ever in selecting to wear head covering. No shame in it. He thought about taking the helmet off, but he figured he should keep it. For safety reasons. And it had nothing to do with wanting just to look cool. His good old sunbonnet was up to the task in either case. It was an incredible piece of equipment. There weren’t too many Phase II helmets still in working order in the galaxy. Certainly not as cool looking as his.  
  
Rex thought that dream might be making him nervous.  
  
As the freighter slowly came alongside them, Rex opened the bay door to the Ghost’s cargo hold. The shield was up, but Rex zoomed with the helmet visor and could see outside the ship perfectly through the shield. An escape pod jettisoned, but with a jolt. Rex saw Hera’s body get thrown against the wall. The pod lurched off course, nowhere near the magnetic locks. Security droids on the freighter began to assemble where the pod had detached. They were firing at the pod.  
  
Rex ran on instinct and launched himself out the shield after the pod. He flew out the bay, kicking off into space. The helmet allowed a few minutes worth of air. He had not been thinking about whether his skin would get too cold until he felt it stiffen his fingers. With the winch hook in his hand, he dove to catch hold of one of the exterior handles of the conveyance.  
  
Suddenly, what sounded like a scream that could shatter ice rang through Rex’s ears, shocking him with tinnitus. He scraped his hand and the cold against his cut made it sing with pain.  
  
Then he noticed. He noticed the chamber was depressurizing. Hera didn’t have much time. Rex instinctively unlocked the pod door, scooped up Hera into his arms and jerking on the line to cause the winch to retract them. The pod received more droid fire and then exploded.  
  
They were back within the bay in seconds. Rex shivered and felt the burn of the thaw of his skin.  
  
Kallus commed down from the bridge. “They think they got us. We hit the side of that freighter. I locked the magnets, now we’re stuck to it. Their sensors no longer registered us as a separate ship and jumped away into hyperspace.”  
Rex yelled through the helmet, “Get my bag, my one for medications!” He struggled through checking Hera’s pulse and breathing. The sensors on his helmet told him her heart rate was going through cycles. As if she was being jolted periodically by pain.  
  
Kallus returned and opened the bag. Rex took out a nitro glycerine patch. As with treating field injuries, he was reacting so automatically that he didn’t have time to be embarrassed as he undid Hera’s belt and exposed the green skin of her stomach. He spread the patch on her abdomen. He held her head up a little and continued to monitor her vitals through the T visor. He waited. And checked. And waited. And checked. Her breathing returned to normal. Her heart rate regularized. The premature labor was ended. The ringing in Rex’s ears finally stopped.  
  
He took the helmet off so he could breathe on his own again.  
  
–  
  
“I was detected taking the pod out. Got into a little firefight with the guard droids,” Hera explained later when she had recovered from her concussion. “Thanks for getting me out, Rex.”  
  
Rex bowed his head modestly, “Saving Generals is my specialty, actually.”  
  
“One of many,” Hera looked at him.  
  
Kallus stood up suddenly, “I’d um...better go see if the coast is clear. Hopefully the freighter is stopping somewhere with a refueling station. We’ve got barely anything left. Who knows how far we’ve jumped and how long it will take us to get back.” He departed and closed the door panel behind him.  
  
“Um...well, I’ll just leave you to your room, I guess,” Rex made for the door, “Let me know if you want some bacta salve for the old freezer burn.”  
  
“I think I’m good actually. You had be pretty well covered,” Hera answered in what seemed to Rex to be a knowing way.  
  
He criticized himself in his head all the way up to the bridge. He was worried he had seemed smothering. It was definitely a goal of his in life not to seem as needy as he felt.  
  
–  
  
Rex stared out the viewport of the cockpit at the hyperspace blues remembering a time. When he used to observe the two of them interacting. What he’d seen in this Force torture seemed so impossible. He couldn’t imagine his friends ever trying to hurt each other. Never mind mutilate so viciously. The problem was, in Rex’s experience, Force torture didn’t work with outright lies.  
  
There was a little voice in his head that just kept reminding him of it. Increasingly sure of itself. Rex knew that didn’t make any sense. He assured himself that stress can feel the same sometimes as a moment of truth.  
  
Rex tried to examine what stake he himself might have in denying that it was a possibility that Kenobi killed Skywalker. He realized there was some. These were the people he looked up to. 

He’d always thought he’d known. The Emperor had killed Skywalker because he was good and the Emperor was bad. Cody had killed Kenobi for the Emperor, because Kenobi was good and Cody chose the bad. Now something was wrong with it.  
  
He remembered a voice, like an ancient Jedi frequency. A kind of note on a musical scale. At one time, Rex had been bonded to this person, allowing him access to his feelings. Rex did not know more than a few feelings to have, but he was able to give voice to one and call out to his friend. Confusion!  
  
Rex knew he would never hear back. And not only because he had always believed the man was dead. But mainly because that was how Force relationships worked among the normals. They could be sensed, whether they knew it or not, but would be deaf to anything in return. But he hoped that he was heard. He was not demanding an explanation so much as posing a question. Like an invitation. The man was probably dead anyway. It didn’t matter.  
  
Rex had always been certain Cody had really killed Obi-Wan Kenobi. But then he thought about months before, when Ezra had been raving. Rex resolved to ask him about it after. Not now. After the mission was done. There’d be time then.  
  
\--


	2. Their Tails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolffe lives through another one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue from, "A Fool's Hope" by Henry Gilroy and Steven Melching

Seelos

Wolffe was having his shift driving the walker one night. Everyone else had gone to sleep in the compartments. He was recording a transmission to send Mahti. It was his will. He knew he didn’t have much to leave behind on that world, but he wanted to have something to say about what happened anyway.  
  
It made him feel old, but anything else would have felt irresponsible.  
  
“There is a stash I buried of what looks like some kind of government grade spice,” Wolffe had thought it was funny that the face on the tins had looked like Alis. He’d thought about keeping one, but he didn’t need that kind of temptation. “They’re stamped with the face of Concordia, the Mandalorian moon goddess, so probably a currency minted to pay soldiers in some short lived conflict.”  
  
Wolffe knew Mahti could read. It was what had started him talking to her in the first place. He was writing and she had read something over his shoulder and asked about it. She was one of the few people Wolffe had encountered on Seelos, outside of the Imperial colonies or a few guys on the police, who could read. She was proud of it. She’d been marooned there when her abusive husband had caught dysentery and died. So she was just making do the best she could, washing clothes and cleaning.  
  
“I doubt anybody’s ever going to come looking for it. I’m unfamiliar with it, but if the stamp is correct, based on the purity and weight, there is a good eight thousand credits worth there.”  
  
It was a lot of hard currency for Seelos.  
  
“Anyway, we’re gonna maroon the vehicle near the Whills Mission, you know, that place I talked about. That place where I set up the statue. Since I am the owner of the thing by salvage rights recognized by the Empire, it is mine, so I say you can have it if you want it. Won’t do much good, nobody on the planet knows how to work it. So I don’t really know what anyone could ever do with it except deconstruct it for the parts. But the value of the parts is really not worth anywhere near what it would cost to stage an expedition to get all the way out there and it doesn’t have enough fuel to get it back. If the Imperials find it, fine, they can take it back, we’re not leaving any evidence of where we went. But I suspect they got newer stuff and it wouldn’t be worth their time. Wasteful buggers. But...it’s there, so if an opportunity comes up, you know about it. Whelp, okay, so that’s everything I guess. That ties up my affairs, dear executrix. I know we won’t see each other again, but please accept my affection.” He sent it by primitive low frequency code. It was so primitive, Imperials didn’t bother to monitor it.  
  
Wolffe looked around to be sure no one was stirring. Then he took out the receipt for Alis’ transmission. It did contain her com signature. He wasn’t sure who else might have seen it besides Tunko. Tunko could barely read. He only liked packages he could skim from. Wolffe went over it and over it. But he was reasonably sure of the odds. Chances were good, he was the only one who knew where Alis had gone or of her connection to them. The police records had been destroyed. The hunters had all been killed.  
  
Then Wolffe looked at the other note. The bit Cut had written on the inside of the herb packet. Cut knew all three brothers used the herbs now and again for pain or recreation. But he also knew Gregor couldn’t read well on account of that part of his brain being permanently damaged. Cut didn’t know that Rex had separated from the pack, so maybe the note was directed at him. But Wolffe calculated that the odds were high that he could at least plausibly deny realizing that at the time. Anyway, instinct told him by Cut’s tone that he was addressing Wolffe anyway.  
  
So Wolffe pondered the meaning. Not the direct meaning. There was only one meaning that could have been meant. Before they had left Cut’s place, Cut had asked his brothers if he should be worried. He didn’t want trouble. They’d decided chances were low that anyone might bother him again. The Empire wanted clones to disappear. As long as they did that peaceably, there would probably be no quarrel.  
  
Except with one person.  
  
‘That thing you said might happen’ referred to the appearance of a very specific person. They hadn’t known when or how, but Wolffe and Rex had just been sure that sooner or later this one person would have found a way to track them down if he lived. And that wasn’t something they welcomed. For their brother Cut, that was a good enough explanation.  
  
For Wolffe, there was no question that Cody would catch up to them. They needed to get off world and another step ahead. Hopefully Rex would give them some indication soon as to what world they were going to go and die on so that Wolffe could avoid that confrontation. As far as Wolffe was concerned, he never wanted to see Cody again. He was the one brother Rex had warned about the control chips who hadn’t believed him, as far as Wolffe knew. Instead Cody had denied it, chosen the side of the Republic over his brother and then he’d killed Kenobi. Rex and Wolffe both suspected that his willful ignorance had been born out of some real desire.  
  
And that was unforgivable to them. Rex and Wolffe both considered their Jedi as family. They both thought that Kenobi’d been one of the good ones.  
  
–

Rex had said he was going to go pick up his general so Wolffe would have to be in charge again. It annoyed him. Then, Wolffe was cheered by the news that the General in question was also of the female persuasion. He never made any secret of his preference. Gregor had asked Rex if she was single, but that question had seemed to annoy Rex to an alarming degree, so Wolffe noticed. Wolffe decided that as soon as Rex got back, he would try to behave. It would confuse Rex to no end.  
  
Thankfully, Ketsu had dealt with Hondo and Melch.  
  
They had produced a stash of allergy medication and proceeded to manufacture a primitive methamphetamine in the sink.  
  
Ketsu responded by locking them in separate closets.  
  
“Mandalorians make great babysitters,” Wolffe laughed when she’d retaken her seat in the bridge.  
  
“I charge extra for kid recovery,” Ketsu didn’t sound unserious. “I always deliver alive at least. Some will do carbonite, but this works almost as well, I find.”  
  
Gregor heard the banging and yelling from the closets. “That’s inhumane, that is!”  
  
Wolffe swatted, “Ah, it was good enough for us.”  
  
“What ever the kark do you mean?” Gregor asked, concerned.  
  
Wolffe looked at Ketsu, “I must apologize for my brother here. He has amnesia and has forgotten all about our childhood.”  
  
“The hell I do! I remember every bit as much as you do. I never slept in no closet!” Gregor swatted back sarcastically.  
  
“Actually, they were more drawers,” Wolffe corrected honestly.  
  
Ketsu had begun to laugh and Wolffe realized that it sounded like they were doing some comedy routine. That gave him a bit of adrenaline, he loved female laughter.  
  
“How were our beds drawers?” Gregor probably could not even imagine it.  
  
“They retracted into a wall and they had external handles,” Wolffe described. “Drawers.”  
  
Ketsu shrieked with laughter, “Oh no!”  
  
“You’re exaggerating,” Gregor decided.  
  
Wolffe didn’t think he needed to pursue it. Gregor had already forgotten what they were talking about and Hondo and Melch had probably fallen asleep or run out of air, since the closets were now silent.  
  
Then later, when Gregor went to go get a jumpsuit mattress, Melch fell out on him, soaked in his own piss, passed out. Gregor got startled and called Melch a burglar and hit him with a vacuum nozzle.  
  
Wolffe made Hondo negotiate his own release by asking him riddles. By the time they let him out, he had sobered up and regained a shred of dignity. But he also smelled like he’d pissed his onesie.  
  
“Clean yourselves up,” Wolffe ordered, “Rex says a General is coming.”  
  
“Ah, probably General Syndulla. My kind of woman, a girl who owns her own ship. Ah, the heists we could pull off,” Hondo scuttled off to go clean his clothes. He then spent some time practicing his poses and tone of voice watching himself in front of the mirror to try to seem suave.  
  
Wolffe did not fail to notice the name. He couldn’t help but laugh to himself. The love of his life used to tell some absolutely hysterical ‘Cham Syndulla’s Mistresses’ jokes. He decided he shouldn’t break any of those out, probably.  
  
Ketsu set everyone to work manning the guns, “Out here, we’re moving slow and vulnerable. The only authority left on the planet are the Imperials guarding the facilities. These walkers have longer range guns than your average Imperial patrol ships. So our best chance is to shoot them before they realize we aren’t with them.”  
  
Wolffe had set to labeling all the controls and switches on the bridge. In his experience, many mistakes were made in the field because somebody panicked when they searched their minds for answers and found none. Rash decisions that were avoidable with a little help. He used to write the test answers on his batch mate Boost’s arm in the academy. It had kept the brother from being branded defective and unfit for combat.  
  
Ketsu found him in the cockpit and took up the controls to drive it to stop Wolffe from trying to write and drive at once.  
  
“So what’s a nice girl like you doing knowing all about Imperial equipment and strategy?” Commander Wolffe offered her a cold drink from a container he had stashed in the wall next to the cooling pipes. It was some kind of Sheelian root beer that was marketed heavily to children with ads on animated holo-vids.  
  
“Imperial Academy cadet. We trained on this exact model,” she tapped the walker’s metal wall.  
  
“You ever have any clone trainers?” Wolffe had heard rumors that some brothers had been allowed to help educate the youth for a brief time.  
  
“Certainly not on Mandalore. But they mostly only knew the out-dated equipment. Was a long time ago, though,” Ketsu didn’t seem to notice how old she was making Wolffe feel.  
  
He was glad for that. If any clone died of pathetic old age with nothing to show for it, he was sure it would be him.  
  
“I heard on Coruscant they didn’t really let clones be around girls,” she smiled like she thought everyone knew that was unreasonable. “Afraid you might corrupt us,” she looked at him a little sidelong like it was funny.  
  
“Are all the rebellious youth so woke?” Wolffe joked in a way he hoped was self-deprecating. Then he looked a little more serious. “That was actually our official position about women,” Wolffe informed her. He hated that he had used, ‘actually’, since it was associated with male arrogance. But he was informing her about clones in this case, he thought he could be safe in his credentials as an established expert.  
  
“Why?” Ketsu seemed surprised.  
  
Wolffe wondered what would surprise her about it.  
  
“Well, it was illegal for us to to be doing anything ‘extracurricular’. So technically, it was just easier for everyone if we avoided being in rooms alone with women during working hours. We had a much higher risk. If we were caught doing anything untoward, women could always plausibly deny consenting to us, but that was a sure way to prison for us if she did. That meant all the power was theirs. The decision was theirs what consequences we faced whether we’d done anything or not, so best to avoid it.”  
  
Ketsu looked incredulous, “There must have been some of your brothers willing to risk it.”  
  
“Aaaaaall the time,” Wolffe had barely let her finish. “Adult life is full of fornicating, the army is not exceptional. But certain precautions were standard. I, for instance, record everything.” He held up his little player pod. It had been equipped with an excessively large memory bank.  
  
Ketsu looked like she thought he was joking.  
  
Wolffe thought back to his experiences in the workplace, “Not to whatabout, or anything, but I could not believe the amount of inappropriate instructor-student relationships occurred between the natural born in the Navy. They had all these rules against it and it seemed like even when they were caught, it was just covered up.”  
  
“That’s pretty frequent at the Imperial Academy, actually,” Ketsu looked thoughtful. “Though probably not as frequent as inappropriate student contact. There is a lot of regular bullying from upperclassmen. That can turn to sexual shaming or coercion almost immediately. Especially of girls, since they’re out numbered. And since the academy is about twelve to one boys, most of the assaults are of a homosexual nature, so no one reports.”  
  
“If that’s what school is like, no wonder the prisons are reportedly so horrible. All those Imperial officers raised as institutional rapists. Everyone must be fair game to them. Women with no one to protect them, lower ranking officers, children. I always wondered why that was their first thought when they got power over someone was how to use them for their own satisfaction.”  
  
“Not your people, though?” Ketsu looked skeptical. She thought Wolffe had the facial hair of a man who liked underage girls.  
  
“We ever had power over anybody? Yeah, nah, we were definitely victimized by the same people. But if you think it’s shameful to report a gay sex crime, try doing it when you’re already referred to by most of society as ‘empty armor’ and ‘half men’.”  
  
Ketsu laughed. It wasn’t funny, but Commander Wolffe had surprised her and that was funny. “Are all you clones so woke?”  
  
“Social justice isn’t just ideals, it is the difference between life and death for some people. We’re just cynical enough to know we already got our shit party from the Empire. All we have left sometimes is just sitting back and watching the rest of the universe to wake up to realize that’s what they’re being served.”  
  
“And we rebellious youth are part of the rest of the universe?” Ketsu looked incredulous.  
  
Wolffe shrugged, “Well, I am older than you, I think.” He looked towards the door to check if it was open. Then he heard Gregor’s familiar footsteps.  
  
Gregor arrived to check on them, “You got fizzy drinks? I want fizzy drinks!”  
  
Wolffe shook his head, “You’ll forget as soon as you get one and demand another. Then another. Until you’ve taken them all and nobody else has had any.”  
  
The dash started whooping.  
  
–  
  
“Sandstorm coming!” Gregor bellowed from the head hatch. Wiggling the damned thing open had taken twenty minutes.  
  
Gregor looked through his helmet visor, “Dark gray, this one is. Like mud rain.”  
  
A sandstorm. If they didn’t find cover, they might never get the walker moving again. Suddenly Wolffe decided they could make it to the Whills mission. He steered course for it and just hoped they had enough fuel to get there. They had a covered barn the walker could fit in.  
  
It was a tense day as they kept a steady pace, trying not to overheat. It was itchy humid.  
  
By sundown, they reached the mission on a hill above the scree line in a wadi.  
  
The brother monks came out with a number of the indigenous species that had taken shelter there. The walker was moved into the repair tent with all the livestock and people.  
  
Wolffe cut down some dried joopa they had in provisions and shared them around.  
  
Gregor and Wolffe had seemed to automatically switch to serious as they acted on their programming in disaster relief mode. They had extensive training and an order of priorities to organize. It had surprised Ketsu how much she enjoyed the work. As a student of the Imperial education system, Ketsu had no such training in mercy missions. Although, she still remembered, as a child, admiring the beautiful and poised Duchess Satine bringing aid to people in need. She’d insisted that negotiation was better than endless fighting. Things had seemed simpler when Ketsu was a kid.  
  
The Aleena monks gestured at Wolffe gratefully in their system of communication. They sat everyone down around the central hearth and told a story in gestures about what had come. Wolffe interpreted. “A storm, with lightning and a flash flood, a mudslide. The village on the low ground was destroyed. The mission is on a hill so the villagers came here,” he finished. The monks nodded.  
  
“Where is all this water coming from,” Wolffe asked.  
  
They gestured. They said less, but Wolffe understood. He knew scientifically what they were describing.  
  
“The industry. The terraforming for the colonies is bringing ever more water into the atmosphere. It’s finally collected. The power plants have put a charge to it. Making for more storms. Water table rising, flooding into people’s tunnel shelters underground. The brother monks have been weaving nets to keep off biting insects. The bugs spread disease and once the water started drying up there were standing puddles left for breeding grounds.”  
  
The monks held up some examples of nets.  
  
“We can’t undo the damage, only help you be better prepared. We can build you some terraces and flood walls. Set up lightning rods to reduce fires.” Wolffe had worked a lot of disaster relief during the war. He had it handled.  
  
Hondo was made uncomfortable with all the altruism about. He went to Commander Wolffe finally, “Ho, there. So, any word on when we are getting off world?” He was scratching himself like he was going through withdrawals. “I’ve got a lot of people out looking for me. I don’t like to stay any one place too long.”  
  
Wolffe nodded, “Yeah, I get that. But we are waiting to hear from my brother and that’s just what I’m gonna do. So get weaving some nets, or help with the terrace walls, or sit around with your thumb in your ass. I don’t care. Don’t get in anyone else’s way.”  
  
“I guess I don’t have any choice,” Hondo shrugged.  
  
“We all have a choice,” Wolffe felt stronger with Rex around. Like he knew just what to do.  
  
That night, after the terrace walls were built, Wolffe spent some time playing music for the children at first, organizing a kind of musical performance. Everyone had eventually come around to see it.  
  
The children sang the songs for him as they departed the next day. They steered the walker for the open desert of the salt flats to keep it moving. Wolffe felt it was a nice way to go out of Seelos in style. Wolffe felt like he was successfully pretending to be someone he liked.  
  
–  
  
Rex sent a transmission via their frequency, “Ghost to Joopa base, do you copy?”  
  
Wolffe assumed his normal com attitude. He was feeling cooperative, “This is Joopa base, please proceed to coordinates 6782.”  
  
Rex silently thanked Wolffe for not playing games. He didn’t want Hera to think that as a commanding officer he tolerated insubordination.  
  
Wolffe was alone outside to greet them. He didn’t look a bit annoyed or that he was letting anyone get to him. In fact he was strangely calm. Rex noticed Wolffe had a few bite marks on his neck. He decided not to ask any questions.  
  
Wolffe saluted Rex and smiled. Smiled. His most knowing smile. This tortured Rex a bit.  
  
Rex struggled not to make that face that he and his brothers made that meant, ‘Don’t you dare.’  
  
Hera could tell him for herself.  
  
Wolffe trotted ahead and opened the heavy portal hatches for the General. He did not make eye contact with her, and in fact was acting a little gruff.  
  
Gregor was standing in the room sucking in his gut with his fists on his hips in some super hero pose in the presence of not one, but two ladies.  
  
‘Force help me,’ Rex groaned internally.  
  
“We were expecting you last rotation,” Wolffe practically scolded. Although he always hung his head lower than Gregor or Rex did. It hurt him sometimes to stand up straight.  
  
Hera pleaded for understanding, “I had trouble escaping Lothal. The Empire’s blockade is tougher than ever.”  
  
Hondo sighed in what he imagined was a sexy fashion of an interesting worldly older gentleman. “That would be no problem for me,” Hondo reassured, dramatically posing himself in come hither fashion.  
  
Hera was not fooled, “Hondo, I see you got my message.”  
  
Hondo climbed over the table, slinking like a chameleon, using Melch as a surface at one point. He removed his hat and bowed dramatically, like a vaudeville prince, “At your service. And mine too, of course.”  
  
He passed behind Ketsu, who was doing her best not to trip him. He probably imagined he was making Ketsu jealous.  
  
“He wasn’t hard to find. Talks a lot for a smuggler,” she said instead.  
  
“Bup, bup, bup,” Hondo shushed her in gratingly condescending fashion, “Pirate, that is pirate, my dear.”  
  
He put his hand on her chair and crowded her. Ketsu was sure everyone had seen she was justified in breaking his fingers if she wanted to.  
  
“So much more romantic than a smug...mug...word that ugh...just...never mind,” Hondo insisted on staying in Ketsu’s space.  
  
Kallus had eyes on it. Former ISB Agent Kallus coldly suggested they get back in line, “I think it’s time we discussed the mission.”  
  
Hondo snapped to standing position and assumed a gesture of deference, “Of course. But with such an odd collection of characters, I’m curious, how are we going to split the profits? Are we stealing? Are we...’liberating’.” Every one of them knew how much time the Rebels spent agonizing over those distinctions. It wasn’t much.  
  
Wolffe looked suspicious, but not really. As if he was acting.  
  
Rex cringed internally, expecting Wolffe shenanigans. He wasn’t disappointed.  
  
“Rebel Command never sent a briefing,” Wolffe said in a tone that was bordering on sarcastic.  
  
Rex was internally screaming at him to shut the hell up. Everyone knew Rebel command didn’t send briefings out. It kind of ran counter to their whole running-an-illegal-conspiracy-against-the-state thing. And Wolffe knew Hondo didn’t give a kark about Rebel kriffing Command!  
  
Rex grabbed Wolffe’s shoulder and made eye contact with the peripheral vision of his prosthesis. He barely covered his condescension, while making that face that told Wolffe to stop screwing around, “That’s because, old friend, this mission isn’t for the Rebellion.” Rex realized that Wolffe’s shoulder was cold. His face carried fear.  
  
With a facial expression, Rex asked that Wolffe trust him. Then directed his gaze towards Hera. Wolffe followed suit. Like in a chapel, they found something at which to direct their common devotion. Gregor did as they did, as if it was part of his programming.  
  
The light hit Hera’s face from above, “It’s for Ezra, we are liberating his home. And we need your help, all of you.”  
  
That simple phrase got Wolffe’s attention. Even Ahsoka hadn’t guaranteed him inclusion when she’d sent her little call to adventure last time.  
  
He was just certain, the only reason he was being recruited now was because no one else was left. He knew he was a worthless piece of garbage. They must be desperate if they were calling him.  
  
So Wolffe was furious at himself when he answered as an army commander. “Against a planet of Imperials? General, those are difficult odds.” The care worn on his face looked likely to break.  
  
“I agree! But that boy has spirit!” Hondo had a look on his face like he was calculating how much he could steal in looting after a regime change. Or how far up he could get himself placed in the corrupt bureaucracy that followed. Hondo affected a tone that was over the top, “He reminds me of a time when there was still something you could believe in.” Probably practicing his politician skills.  
  
“The Jedi,” Ketsu said, with reverence.  
  
Wolffe supposed that reverence for the traditional enemies of Mandalore was what passed for rebellious where she was from.  
  
He affected the tone Rex knew to be the one he used when he was trying to seem profound, but not really say anything at all, “We followed them into battle many times.” Wolffe internally enjoyed his own little rebellion. Yeah, no shit they had followed Jedi into battle. And how often did that work out? It was the perfect middling lack of enthusiasm that he knew would convey to Rex just the right amount of passive aggression.  
  
“Well how ‘bout one more time, eh?” Gregor was as over-excited as a dog on a farm. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging. He laughed dopily in a way Wolffe felt was out of place bordering on macabre.  
  
Wolffe felt a flash of unconscious. Empty black and white armor moving across a scorched city like a specter of neglect.  
  
“So you’re in,” Hera smiled so hopefully.  
  
Wolffe knew he was sunk.  
  
“Hera,” Hondo removed his hat, “For that boy, there is nothing I would not do.”  
  
Wolffe knew he was about to meet his destiny, but he decided nevertheless to go down swinging. He turned to Rex and whispered, “Anybody else getting a pedo vibe from this guy?”  
  
Hera smiled at Rex. They were both thinking of that time she had told him the outrageous story of how teenage boy Ezra had just answered a hail and run off to meet an adult male somewhere alone without telling anyone. She and Kanan had had to have a talk with him about not doing things like that in the future. When he’d met Hondo, pedo vibe had been Rex’s assessment as well.  
  
–

When it came to selecting positions for manning the ship, Ketsu and Wolffe took off together, which confirmed Rex’s suspicions.  
  
Hera asked Kallus to stay on the bridge with her, since Hondo had to be there as well and she wouldn’t be in a room alone with him. Melch had fallen asleep. Rex was relegated to communications. Hera hadn’t wanted him to make her condition common knowledge, so Rex felt he had to be ready to go at any moment if she needed medical treatment.  
  
They were near the end of the hyperspace journey to Lothal.  
  
“Just received a transmission from Chopper,” Rex commed Hera, “They’re under attack.”  
  
Hera made the command, while piloting, “Coming up on Lothal, get ready to power down.”  
  
She pulled the switch and they drifted silently towards the Imperial lines.  
  
“I don’t think we were detected.” Kallus checked the dash panel.  
  
“Hondo, time to join the Rebellion,” Hera steered the ship as it coasted.  
  
“Very good, move us to these coordinates,” Hondo reached close to her and punched in the numbers.  
  
Hera shook her head, “That’s a hyperspace lane, Hondo.”  
  
“Technically, it is just outside a hyperspace lane.” He paced back to his seat, “We shall wait there for a cargo ship to arrive.”  
  
“Are you mad?” Kallus stood, “It will crash into us.” This was the reverse of their standard protocol.  
  
“This is the risk you take when you are a pirate. You do want to get through the blockade, yes? You want to help Ezra, yes? Then you must listen to Hondo. I have done this many times. And I’ve only been struck...” He counted on his fingers a few times, “I have done this many times.” He turned his back on them like a petulant child.  
  
Kallus commed Rex to come up there. It was completely unacceptable. Kallus hoped Rex would be able to give Hera some better advice.  
  
Rex entered the cockpit and sat down in Sabine’s usual chair. Kallus stood between the chairs and explained to Rex what Hondo was proposing to do. His response was a surprise.  
  
“Listen,” he said finally, “We can’t just sit here. Who knows how long Ezra can hold out down there.” Rex was usually for action over caution. It was a Skywalker thing.  
  
“Patience, patience my friend. The Empire runs shipment all the time,” Hondo purred. The dash panel whooped. “Here comes one now.”  
  
It fell out of hyperspace and closed in on them fast. All the burden fell on Hera’s piloting to keep them from getting killed.  
  
“You see, what did I tell you?” Hondo, as usual, took all the credit.  
  
Rex pushed Hondo aside and ran for his station at the clamps. He slid down the ladder just like in the old days. But he didn’t hit his head at all.  
  
Hondo crowded both Kallus and Hera, making both of their skin crawl, “I admire your crew’s efficiency, but you must not power up ship at this moment, or...”  
  
“Or we’ll be detected. I know,” Hera was annoyed. She used to beat this blockade daily. But she changed her tone to speak to Rex on the com, “Rex, stand by on the magnetic clamp.”  
  
“Sir, yes, sir,” Rex said, more emotionally than necessary. He didn’t mind. They both knew the subtext.  
  
Hera bit her lip as she carefully steered her ship up against the freighter. “Now,” she commanded.  
  
Rex twisted the key and pulled the switch. The Ghost latched on to the larger ship. The two would seem one on the scans.  
  
“Cargo freighter EF-75, stand by for code authentication,” they heard over the Imperial frequency. They’d come dangerously close to being picked up by the scanners.  
  
“Freighter EF-75, you are cleared to proceed,” the Imperial voice returned.  
  
There was a brief silence aboard ship as the Ghost crew took a collective breath of relief. Then everyone’s peace was interrupted suddenly as Hondo shouted, “Yes, once again. Hondo comes through! No need to thank me!”

  


–  
  
Lothal 

Before you knew it, the ship was descending. Wolffe felt the giddy nausea he often got from turbulence. He and his brothers were on the front lines again. He was positive he was going to be shot immediately and that would be the end of him. Being dropped out of a ship about to meet his doom was such a familiar feeling that he had absolutely no anxiety. It made him feel a little like laughing.  
  
Gregor was laughing. Probably at the giddy surprise he derived from experiencing something familiar, yet not knowing why.  
  
The ship lurched as the Ghost received fire.  
  
Kallus and the clones got their weapons at the ready. The ramp fell and the four of them ran out onto the wreck of the crawler, firing in every direction. THE Captain Rex did a gratuitous somersault at the base of the ramp, unrolling standing and using the momentum to begin firing. He found it helped focus his aim to use one of his most familiar gun katas. It felt as if the weapons were a part of him as if he was throwing the bolts with his own hands.  
  
While Rex had chosen to go out blazing with his signature DC-17’s, Wolffe had felt the classics are sometimes best. He and Gregor had old DC-15’s, standard issue. Because in a panic, it is best to have something familiar to fall back on. Those guns were almost as routine to them as bathing.  
  
The fighters overwhelming the Ghost, it broke off from the platform to try to lose some of them.  
  
Rex led his men to some crates for cover. Wolffe and Gregor automatically followed. Zeb, Ezra and some other guy were already there.  
  
“We’re still out numbered,” the Devaronian yelled at Ezra.  
  
“Not for long,” Commander Bridger shouted. Rex noticed that the Jedi was using a blaster not his saber. “Fall back to the caves.”  
  
Rex and Wolffe might have been the only ones still familiar enough with Jedi tactics to know stuff was about to get serious. Ezra drew his saber, like a beacon for the bad guys to follow. Then he shut it off when they were inside the cave, so their eyes wouldn’t have time to adjust to the lack of light.  
  
Ezra’s cohort hid in the dark. Wolffe’s cybernetic eye switched automatically to night vision mode. They were not alone in there.  
  
“Where is your army now, Jedi,” The noghri croaked in the dark.  
  
The green saber lit up the cave chamber, stunning their newly dilated pupils.  
  
The massive canine creatures leaped out as if by Ezra’s direction, and angrily chased the Stormtroopers. The bad guys turned and ran for the light at the cave mouth. Their vision again stunned by the sudden return to the sun. The cheap helmets couldn’t keep up. The troopers were nearly blind.  
  
At the cave mouth, first burst out the shrieking Stormtroopers, then the loth-wolves in an explosion of teeth and fur. Ezra led the other humanoids in a charge out of the cave following at their tails. Wolffe couldn’t contain how cool an entrance he thought that was. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad battle to die in.  
  
Then...he didn’t. People were everywhere dying and...he...didn’t.  
  
Everywhere, bloody body parts in white armor littered the place among the small fires and blaster singes.  
  
A Stormtrooper tried futilely to escape his fate. “No, no, no, no!” he screamed, terrified as a child. Then the wolf gripped him with its teeth and tossed him off the crawler, shrieking.  
  
Wolffe checked the pulse on another Stormtrooper body. Nope, he wasn’t alive either. It was a human catastrophe. The loss of life so out of hand. Wolffe felt dizzy.  
  
Gregor gazed upon the chaos and smiled like a kid as the loth-wolves tossed one Stormtrooper after another to their deaths at the base of the crawler. “Hey, Wolffe,” he squeaked.  
  
“What?” Wolffe growled in consternation.  
  
“The wolves! You got your wolf pack back!” Gregor shouted.  
  
Wolffe was absolutely certain in that moment that Gregor believed that all those times he had told Gregor about the Wolf Pack, Gregor had always been picturing the literal animals, or at least animal anthropomorphs instead of a group of their clone brothers. That thought made him sad, but he didn’t think there was going to be any time to correct the misconception. Gregor wouldn’t remember anyhow.  
  
Wolffe mustered enthusiasm he didn’t feel into saying something for Gregor’s sake, “Yeah, they fight just like the boys.” One wolf threw a Stormtrooper to certain doom. He wailed in fear all the way. Wolffe grimaced awkwardly at the familiar noises.  
  
Gregor cackled, “Just like ‘em.”  
  
Wolffe charged back into the melee with Gregor following. Eventually, the number of Stormtroopers had dwindled to a number the Rebels could surround. The bad guys all surrendered. Ezra’s private canine army guarded the Imperials, while another carried the governor with his teeth.  
  
“Just like in the old days, right Wolffe?” Gregor elbowed him.  
  
Wolffe shook his head slowly. But in a way that meant disbelief, not ‘no’. It was exactly like the old days, every single one of them. Because he was still alive.  
  
–  
  
Hera arrived at nightfall. She deboarded with the party and went to her foster son, “You did it! Somehow, against all the odds, you actually did it.”  
  
Rex beamed. Ezra had made Kanan proud, that was for sure. Everyone was standing around him. In a circle. It reminded Rex of Jedi traditions. Before and after battles, Jedi had tended to give little speeches to try to summarize lessons of the encounter. Kenobi had been famous for his ‘Jedi homilies’.  
  
“I couldn’t have without you,” Ezra thanked his foster mother. Then he addressed his troops, “All of you,” Ezra told them, sincerely.  
  
“So true my young friend, you’re welcome,” Hondo was of course the first to take credit.  
  
“So, I uh...I guess the fight is won and we all get paid and...go home now,” he put his arm around Ezra and touched his shoulder.  
  
Wolffe made the ‘I told you so’ face in Rex’s peripheral vision.  
  
“I wish it was over, but it’s not,” Ezra said slowly. “Not until we chase the Empire from Lothal and show the galaxy that for all their power, they can be defeated.”  
  
–  
  
Wolffe sort of hung to himself and let Rex and the others that wanted to organize everything just get to it. He took a walk out in the high grass. Explored the cliffs some. He was in a large cave mouth, with a significant calcium formation in it, fused stalagmite and stalactite into a column. Several little tokens had been left by those that had bothered to climb up there. Some of the graffiti looked old. Wolffe made some sketches of it on Gregor’s drawing tablet. Wolffe had borrowed it and Gregor hadn’t ever asked for it back. In fact, he’d insisted he wanted Wolffe to have it.  
  
As he turned to leave the cave, Wolffe was surprised to see Ezra standing there.  
  
Wolffe stood still and waited for Ezra to talk first.  
  
Ezra wasn’t confrontational, “I just wanted to say thank you. I sense your reluctance about all this. All the killing.”  
  
“I didn’t actually ever say yes to any of this. But nobody ever noticed,” Wolffe tried to joke. But it was too close to the truth not to be painful. His lip quivered a little.  
  
“If you’re more comfortable manning the base, that’s fine,” Commander Bridger decided. “Captain Rex says you were an extraction specialist. You can work more in a rescue capacity.”  
  
Wolffe hadn’t known that was an option. But he was glad. It mattered to him how many people he didn’t kill. “Thanks, Ezra.”  
  
“I also sense...conflict. Like you’re hiding from something,” Ezra did not say this in a threatening way. But nonetheless, Wolffe felt threatened.  
  
“I’m sure we all got stuff we’re not sure of,” Wolffe refused to be deferential. “But we’re all just doing the best we can.” Wolffe started to walk out of the cave, Ezra joined him side by side.  
  
“So Rex says you were friends with Ahsoka, too,” Ezra was surprising Wolffe a little with all the attention. Most people Wolffe knew really seemed to not want to have anything to do with him, in his experience. But these damn fool idealistic youth seemed to like him for some reason.  
  
“Sure. We go way back,” Wolffe was afraid to lay claim to more friendship than that, lest Ahsoka had painted a different picture. He wouldn’t want to seem unrealistic.  
  
“She had Hera laughing one night as they were trading jokes about her father’s mistresses. Ahsoka served on Ryloth, I think she might have heard them there.”  
  
“Yeah, nah, she heard them from me. It was a popular Twi’lek humor genre at the time,” Wolffe explained. As they walked, he was looking around for the Imperials they had taken prisoner. He didn’t see the loth-wolves guarding anyone but the governor. He silently wondered if the plan was just to exterminate all the Imperials on Lothal.  
  
To ease his conscience, he decided to ask a question, “So what’s the deal, do the animals do what you say or do they just consult with you? Because, they ate a BUNCH of people, and I know they are carnivorous in nature and animals fight to the death all the time, but...feeding people to canines? Yikes.”  
  
“Really?” Ezra didn’t really look like he had had any ethical concerns about it. “It’s actually more like...they connected with me to ask me to help them. I just tell them things back, like ‘run away’ or ‘help’ or ‘bad people that way.’ They know just what they want to do.”  
  
“So it’s more mutual than just mind controlling them?” Wolffe felt better about it somehow. He had heard about Kenobi connecting with some gutkurrs on Ryloth, just to lead them into an alley and crush them with falling debris. The alternative was to let more clones get eaten, but Wolffe couldn’t help but feel sorry for the creatures. And he had very specific objections to mind control.  
  
“They can sense the Empire’s factories hurting the planet. They are defending themselves just as much as we are. There will be no Lothal left for anybody if we don’t fight the Empire,” Ezra made clear. “I don’t control them, there is balance.”  
  
“You’re a thoughtful kid,” Wolffe warmed a bit. He had to admit it, he loved Jedi just as much as Rex did. General Plo had never told him what to think or feel, but he’d always given him more things to think about, and that made him feel better. Maybe if anybody caught up with them, having a Jedi around would help keep them safe. Maybe joining the Rebellion wasn’t so bad after all.  
  
They walked back towards camp, more or less at Ezra’s direction. He led him right to General Syndulla herself.  
  
Wolffe kept repeating in his mind, ‘Don’t tell any Cham Syndulla’s misstresses jokes.’ But they just kept occurring to him, like bubbles rising from a fermenting liquor. Hera told the first one though, and before long, they were laughing like friends.


	3. Carving Knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission to Seelos goes awry

Rishi  
  
Cody had asked Niner to act as a chaperon for his and Niki’s mission. She was always more polite to him when other people were around, he thought. He hadn’t debriefed Niner about any details when he’d walked into his room at the rest house and told him to be ready in half a tick. But one advantage of a family army was that there usually needed be no questions asked. A brother could be consistently relied upon to help out with volatile situations.  
  
Niki chose to remain in her quarters. She brought a lot of reading. Manuscripts for the new medical certification program literature had to be edited for clarity. It wasn’t like she was dumbing it down, she knew what they said.  
  
Her own colony mandated medical training had allowed Niki to be proficient in several emergency battlefield surgeries. She had chosen that certification because she had never been squeamish. Like any good citizen of the good old D-Q-A, she carried her mission kit everywhere she went. But hers always was in the best looking bag.  
  
She had to edit for clarity because Kaminoan clinical terminology was filled with terms about humanoid physiology that were deemed dehumanizing and offensive.  
  
\--  
  
The brothers remained in the cockpit together.  
  
Niner certainly didn’t feel in awe of Cody the way some brothers had. He had seen Cody make an ass of himself plenty when he was younger, he was nothing exceptional. Certainly, Niner was never going to his own brother and treat him like he was some kind of Lord and Savior.  
  
But this was the first time they had been alone together since Niner had run off to join Cody’s organization. Niner was politely deferential. It was Cody’s ship, after all. And Cody had saved his life once. Most people in the galaxy didn’t give a turd about a clone’s life enough to save one.  
  
That’s why it was strange, what Cody said to him.  
  
“Alright, brother, ask me anything,” Cody made the jump to hyperspace and sat back as the ship autopiloted the way.  
  
Niner surprised himself with his instant response, “So what really happened? You know, at the end of the war? Most of us guys were nowhere near a Jedi then, but we all heard the order. Cody, it came from the Chancellor. But you testified first, and you said the order came from you. We just assumed you had access to top secret intel or plans, we didn’t question it. Every brother went along with you.”  
  
Cody breathed deep, closed his eyes, exhaled and opened his eyes. He began to tell the story the way he had many times. His recollection of it was crystal clear.  
  
“I got the order first. The Chancellor named me by name because he knew me. I had been meeting with him regularly to give my reports on the state of the military. I didn’t want to be secretive. But the issues were delicate, he’d said. He was the politician, I wasn’t. I just told him the truth. After Umbara, I thought things were dangerous for us, with the Jedi in the field. Then Commander Offee killed a bunch of clones. After General Vos turned, I was proved conclusively right. We had no protection from them if one went bad. Palpatine had given me this private com and said to contact him any time if I saw something that wasn’t right. I had it in my kit, I hadn’t thought about it much. Then, in the heat of the damned Battle of Utapau, Kenobi dropped his weapon. That’s important.”  
  
“Why?” Niner asked.  
  
“I gave it back to him. Everyone saw it. If I was planning to harm him, do you think I would have done that? He didn’t know I had it, after all. It proves we weren’t in on the conspiracy. I didn’t know what was coming. All of a sudden the com sounded. I took it out, the Chancellor appeared,” Cody gestured as if holding a holo-com, “Then he said it. If he’d said it over general coms, it would have been recorded in my helmet. That is most likely why he contacted me the way that he did. Because this was how he planned it, the way he’d ALWAYS planned it. He said, ‘Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66.’”  
  
It was like my brain was separated from my body and the body was being operated from some distant source, like some blasted droid control ship or something. I wasn’t sure where it was going, but I couldn’t switch off the autopilot. It was the odd sensation of falling or being submerged in water with eyes open. I knew my body must be separate, because what I said next was just so not like me.”  
  
“What did you say?” Niner was looking right at him.  
  
“‘Yes, My Lord,’” Cody looked down and shook his head. “I had never called anyone that in my life. I turned to the nearest brother, Boil, who was manning the gun on the nearest AT-TE. I pointed at Kenobi and said, ‘Blast him.’ Then I passed on the last sentence of the Order through the clone com channels. It was over in minutes. Of course, nobody in the Core was aware of it yet because they were concentrating on the chaos on Coruscant. An attempt on the Chancellor’s life. Emergency lockdowns of power and communications systems. Then the slaughter at the Jedi Temple. Then the raging fires. I woke up from the trance like it was a dream, but it was not imaginary. They had things back up and running the next day when Palpatine made the Declaration of the Empire. He said he was going to turn us into the Stormtrooper corps, that was the first we’d heard of it. They brought us all home right away. The actual committers of murders or those officers that had ordered their men to shoot. None of us had any idea what would happen to us. I was taken in to speak privately with the new emperor. He told me he had no recollection of giving any order. It would be my word against his, a slave against his master. That was it then. I went along with the sham and took the blame because it would keep us from being executed. That was all. It was the only choice I had.”  
  
“Yeah, but when did you ever show remorse?” Niner shrugged it off, though his ears were hot. Niner was imagining Cody in the worst possible light he could. The brother had long been known as an entitled asshole.  
  
“Like Bly?” Cody asked.  
  
Niner realized that he had a point. Bly had bitten on the head of a blaster. A lot of brothers did.  
  
“Who says that wasn’t what I planned? I didn’t ask to be in charge here. I’m...not in charge here,” Cody put up his palms in a gesture of surrender.  
  
“Despite all appearances?” Niner chuckled.  
  
“No really,” Cody cleared his throat a little. Then he told the story, the way he had, many times.  
  
“I was the warden of this place when it was a prison. I had complete and total autonomy to govern the facility any way I felt like and permission to act as I saw fit in the Empire’s interests on the planet. My interests were the Empire’s interests. I could have done anything I wanted, without remorse or consequences. Rape, murder, cannibal holocaust. His Excellency didn’t give a kark. He probably wanted that. I just wasn’t allowed to leave. Only I came to see that, I didn’t think people like them deserved to suffer if people like me deserved to live, never mind have power. I hadn’t made good choices. I was a nasty bastard and a murderer. So I gave the choice to someone else.”  
  
“How?” Niner thought he knew.  
  
“Lina was a prisoner here. I asked her if she would come with me up to the lake. I didn’t know what she’d say, but she came with me. I don’t know if she thought she had to, but she did. I got her out alone, handed her most of my clothes and my gun. I walked out into the lake with my back to her. I waited a few seconds for the sound of a blast and instead I heard a splash. And a laugh,” Cody’s voice always quavered slightly at this part.  
  
“Really?” Niner didn’t ask it because he doubted, he asked it more like a plea that such a thing could be true for a clone.  
  
Cody bit his lip a little and looked down. “She didn’t even know how to fire a weapon. I told her my plan for taking over this place. She took credit for converting me and we’ve been together ever since. She decided what would happen with me. She made the peace between the prisoners and me. She saved my life so that I could continue to choose the right things. She saw I’d changed. I was a person who still had things he could do. My training was valuable, it didn’t just prepare me to lead in a war, it had trained me how to survive and protect. How to prepare for disasters.”  
  
“So you do work for her,” Niner had a tear in his eye.  
  
“I love her. Of course I do. It’s people like her who should be in charge, not like me. It’s so easy for her to care, she thinks about what other people need. I’m just out there trying to spread the word about her. That we have a different way of doing things than the Empire. People become part of our alliance if they want to, we don’t make anybody become her subjects. We don’t deny people help if they don’t join, it’s enough for us to have friends.”  
  
“Okay, enough of the marketing pitch. I believe you’re sincere brother,” Niner held out his open palm.  
  
“I really am,” Cody slapped his palm with his own. He’d made something he could believe in fighting for.  
  
“Well, you are raising your family here. It must be a good neighborhood,” Niner laughed at his own joke.  
  
“You have any invitations yet?” Cody looked around, “Usually the eligible widows would have had you guys over by now.”  
  
Niner and the four remaining Stormtrooper brothers recruited with him were still in the rest house near Cody’s residence. They had been required to stay where they were for the time being until they received their housing assignments.  
  
“What’s Niki’s situation? Does she have anybody...regular?” Niner looked back from the cockpit.  
  
“She has threatened to let the next few guys who ask her out to fight to the death in the new sports complex. They would, too,” Cody’s tone was joking, but he wasn’t.  
  
“If I wanted to get in on it, is there a sign up sheet or...” Niner was only kind of joking.  
  
–  
  
The largest non-Imperial settlement on the charts was listed as Kwymartown. They landed a safe distance away and secured the shuttle. Niki emerged from her quarters without saying a word to Cody or Niner. Sun goggles were on and she looked like she was fighting a migraine. One of the Kaminoan doctors they had in the settlement must be mis-translating 'vagina' as 'portal of life' again.  
  
“So who do we say we are?” Niner asked Cody.  
  
“We are here to visit our family. Find out where they may be. No law against that. We have no idea how many brothers might be here,” Cody explained finally. Niner didn’t look surprised to learn there were other clones out there, or that locating them was a priority. In fact, the colony kept detailed databases of all Fett clones that had ever been manufactured and attempted to account for them. Retrieve them where they could. Cody had been looking for Niner when he hijacked the Meebur Gascon, so Blue had insisted.  
  
“Let me take point,” Niner was trying to seem brave in front of Niki. He started to walk up the dune hearing them argue behind him.  
  
“This whole planet reeks of piss,” Niki said through gritted teeth.  
  
“You didn’t HAVE to come,” Cody was being braver than Niner ever could be. He was sure Niki was going to maim Cody for being rude to her.  
  
She replied something in Twi’leki about the 212th being gutkurr shit.  
  
Niner went to scout the terrain. He climbed to the top of a ridge and found himself looking down at a bustling town. From the tattered remnants of uniforms, many of the people he saw must have been runaways or even Imperial conscripted labor from the plants and factories, mines and waste disposal facilities that had been founded on Seelos since the corporations of the Empire had discovered that there was nobody of any consequence on the planet to challenge them. It was a pattern the Empire had used to great effect to colonize and exploit under-populated worlds of the Outer Rim.  
  
The oasis seemed to have acquired people as settlers who had run from these facilities, either because the Empire had marooned them there when a site of industry was no longer profitable to fund transport to, or the people had decided to abandon dependence on the state facilities and found a way to get far enough away to be difficult to retrieve.  
  
The oasis settlement had organized enough that they had warehousing that was storing provisions to be shared. People were eating at communal meals at long tables. Medical care was being administered. The level of water in the oasis was high.  
  
Someone screamed in a Toydarian accent, “BIGGUS DICKUS! The man himself returns at last!” the creature stared at Niner like some divine apparition.  
  
Cody and Niki joined the two of them.  
  
Cody looked at the flying being, “Hello there.”  
  
“This another family member?” Tunko asked Niner. “Any friend of Razor’s...” He patted Niner on the shoulder.  
  
“You know this man?” Cody asked Niner.  
  
“Uh, I guess I do,” Niner made a face at Cody that definitely said he didn’t.  
  
“Razor here and me go way back,” Tunko told them, “Although, only I call him that. Now that we know his proper name.”  
  
“And what is that,” Niki asked.

–  
  
They entered the town and people were observing. Mostly they were observing Niki. The colors of the clothes she wore practically glowed in comparison to everything else on the planet.  
  
There were very few women among them, since the Empire preferred to maroon women on worlds where Imperials were already in charge. Where Imperial officers were stationed. The kind who had autonomy to govern as they saw fit in the Empire’s interests. Their word was their Lord’s.  
  
So Niki was a curiosity, to say the least. Whispers about her appearance preceded her through the crowd.  
  
Niner could hear whispers about Biggus Dickus too, ‘That guy’s a legend,’ a few shouted. Niner waved at people casually. They all seemed flattered. Niner had never had such a great entrance to a place.  
  
A sweet looking Rodian female emerged from the crowd, “Biggus is that you? Look at you! A captain!” A captain in what, she never asked. She hugged him. It was good to be whoever he was supposed to be, Niner thought.  
  
The Rodian looked around behind Niner hopefully, “Is Wolffe here with you?”  
  
Her sparkling eyes set on the creature arriving behind him. The guy that was with him was not Wolffe. Same hair, but two eyes. She decided Wolffe was probably already dead. He had sent her his will after all. His estate would have to be settled. They’d probably come to tell her. And for his property. After all Gregor, aka Biggus Dickus, was probably at least half owner.  
  
Yet, none of them asked for anything. Their ship was worth more in salvage than Mahti had ever seen at once. She had never entertained the notion that the brothers had any rich relatives.  
  
Niner looked her in the face with some amusement. Mahti read it as friendly.  
  
Niner tried to give his brother an alibi. This was automatic amongst clones. “Uh, as far as I know, he’s still out there. But I haven’t seen him in a while,” Niner stuck to the literal truth. Commander Wolffe had gone AWOL officially at the end of the war. Niner found it amusing that this was who they were probably looking for. It was downright romantic.  
  
Niner wished he knew which brother he himself was actually supposed to be. Biggus Dickus was a common name to try to get through on a fake id.  
  
The Toydarian waved his little arms, “We took your advice, Biggus, we’ve made better choices. Everyone works for the community. People on the planet are hearing it’s a place for opportunity.”  
  
Cody seemed interested, “Biggus told you what kind of a system to set up?”  
  
“He just told us to be good to people. What we have is what we’ve come up with,” Tunko bragged. “He was right, we don’t need any leadership. Just mutual respect.”  
  
“Is there anything we can do to help you? We are just visitors here, but we like to repay kindness to our family,” Cody offered. He looked at Niki, who nodded slightly.  
  
“The problem we’ve been having is just getting here, since the oasis is too far away from everything else. But the methods people have come up with are just genius.”  
  
“I can give you some blueprints I’ve got for how to build sailed vehicles that run on treads. They’re cheap to make, we can bring them in in kits. The Imperials on the rest of the planet won’t trade with you, but we will. They supply their colonies, we can bring you things from off world, too. Our goal is not to make you dependent, just able to stand up to the Empire if they give you trouble. Better able to evacuate people who are stuck in the facilities.”  
  
“In exchange for what?” Tunko scratched his stubbly chin. He seemed to have set up himself in a position of decision making. But Mahti was there and people were mostly standing around listening to the conversation.  
  
Cody addressed the crowd, “You’re good people. We think that good people should prosper.”  
  
Cody had no intention of colonizing the world. It was too far away from his center. The place remained a potential spot to explore in future peace missions.  
  
Mahti could see they didn’t need her inheritance. So she decided to try to broach the subject. Wolffe had said that she could have the walker if the opportunity came up. So she went to them when everyone began sharing around food and drink.  
  
Mahti looked at Niner. He looked at her like he liked her.  
  
“Maybe you can help me find the property Wolffe left me? His will was vague. Do you know where he left it?”  
  
‘Biggus,’ of course, didn’t have the faintest clue.  
  
“That Wolffe left you?” Niki interrogated her a little too aggressively.  
  
Mahti frowned at her, “Excuse me, yes, Wolffe left that to me in his will. I have his recording.”  
  
Niki shook her head, “And just why would he do that?”  
  
Mahti felt as if Niki had implied she should explain why a man would have cared about her. Mahti deliberately didn’t explain. She was offended, “He was leaving this world. He wasn’t coming back. He left me his things.”  
  
Niki really wanted to know why Wolffe was writing a will. They had been to two places now looking for Rex and all she’d heard about was Wolffe. It was like Cody was deliberately torturing her, though Niki logically knew he couldn’t have known how it would turn out.  
  
Niner tried to make peace, “Sure, we don’t need it, that’s why he left it to you.”  
  
Biggus was supposed to know what the property was, presumably. Probably some scrappy speeder and half a box of hand lotion. “You know, being as how we were leaving this world and not coming back, it is probably not significant.” Niner looked at Niki to check and make sure he wasn’t making an ass of himself. It was difficult to ask questions of where he went and with whom when he didn’t know who he was or where that brother had gone. But he figured Mahti would drop clues if they could spend more time together. Lots more time together. Maybe alone.  
  
“Yes, maybe on the way, you could tell us some stories about old Biggus, here. I’ve heard them from HIS point of view of course, but I’m eager to hear what’s exaggeration,” Cody patted Niner on the shoulder.  
  
Mahti sized up Cody and found the figure met with her approval. He had just been casually offering around technology. She wondered what else he might have. “It would just be some help. I’m on my own now.”  
  
Niki read Mahti’s flirtatious body language instantly, though no one else did. Niki decided that bitch needed to watch herself or she might find herself grabbed by the bristles and slapped stupid. Cody didn’t HAVE money. It was HER money. SHE was in charge there. The woman was disrespecting her. Niki felt her lekku tense. Niki deliberately snapped herself out of it and begrudgingly got on with the job. “And if we COULD help you?”  
  
“Then I would say yes right away, except for one thing. Are you Imperials? I don’t like Imperials.” Mahti gave an answer that Niki hated because she kind of loved it.  
  
Niki stroked her tchun and all three of them had eyes on her, “Do I look like an Imperial?”

  


–  
  
On the way, they found the location of the spice stash. Mahti didn’t want to show them what her meager legacy was. Niki’s shoes probably cost as much as the worth of the spice tins Wolffe had buried for her. So Mahti didn’t see a need to make a thing out of it. She just bundled them in a cloth and tucked them in her bed roll.  
  
Mahti directed them through the coordinates to the Whills mission.  
  
When they got off the ship, the monks emerged from the mission. The villagers came out of their little huts on the grounds within the mission walls. Everyone began to greet Niner enthusiastically.  
  
“Does anyone know what they’re saying?” Cody asked.  
  
Mahti answered, “They say they know him. They are calling him something. I think it’s Meester Greeger.”  
  
“Did he have anyone with him before?” Cody asked too seriously.  
  
Mahti looked at him strangely, “Ask him.” She pointed at Niner, “Why do you need them to tell you?”  
  
Niner covered, “I just thought they might have seen people around since I left, if they remember the people I was with, maybe they can tell me.”  
  
Mahti asked them. Then translated, “No, no one’s been here. They say yes, you were with lots of different people.”  
  
“Men? Women?” Cody was anxious.  
  
Mahti shook her head, “Their physiology is not exactly humanoid. They don’t really know one human from another, never mind how the sexes are different,” Mahti explained. “But why are you asking, Biggus would know. Gregor was one of the names you used, if I’m not mistaken.” She looked at Niner, “Wolffe called you that,” Mahti looked very suspicious.  
  
Well, that cleared up that mystery, Cody thought. Gregor and Wolffe, the most recent confirmed sightings. They’d been off the radar for years.  
  
One of the locals spoke up, making a clicking noise. Then he said a few words and everyone laughed and cheered.  
  
Mahti turned and smiled, “He says Wolffe was here!”  
  
Niki rolled her eyes. Because of course.  
  
“How do they know him from other humans?” Niki asked.  
  
“Easy, he’s the one with one artificial eye,” Mahti looked at the beings, saying something about Commander Wolffe and putting her open palm on her chest. Probably indicating that he was her friend.  
  
The children suddenly started to clap in unison and then started to sing a song together. The words were indistinct, but it was clear enough if you knew the song. It was one of Commander Wolffe’s favorites. For a second, Niki’s face felt devoid of substance.  
  
Mahti laughed and clapped and said what sounded like, ‘thank you’. Several of the children wanted hugs. The children began another song and they all had little dance steps to do with it, like some elementary school musical play. The children, who were native Seelian, so who did not speak Basic, had no idea how sexually explicit the lyrics were.  
  
Niki and Cody were speechless.  
  
–  
  
The map was hand drawn on a page of a sketch pad. The rips from where it had detached at the perforations were still visible on one edge.  
  
Mahti insisted on coming with them out to the salvage site. She was discreetly asking ‘Biggus’ a lot of questions about how to steer and control an Imperial panel. They were using an Imperial shuttle. Niner explained it and told Mahti about how much was automatic these days. It was mostly just about keeping things level. He even gave her a few turns at the controls for the ship. He didn’t think it was as exciting as she seemed to find it. But whatever. It was nice to have pleasant company.  
  
The walker they spotted and circled around to land on the platform. Based on the amount of sand shifted around it, it had probably been abandoned for months.  
  
They landed on the platform and walked to the heavy doors to the interior. Niki opened each one to reach the innards of the metal beast, all the while cursing the Empire and its stupid construction. She had a cursory look around.  
  
“It’s been picked clean, alright. Took with them, given away, burned, or looted. Is the machine still in working order?” Niki took over immediately.  
  
Niner made way to the bridge and checked the gauges. He smiled a the handwriting on all the little control labels, which he recognized from countless graffiti on military refresher stalls. And 79’s. “Still has a little fuel.”  
  
Niki pointed at Cody, “We can’t leave this here, it’s dangerous. Tell those idiots of yours to come prepared for a pickup.”  
  
Mahti betrayed no offense that was taken. She was already calculating how to get back to the mission and ask them to help her keep her walker. She felt she was in the right.  
  
\--  
  
As soon as it was her shift at watch that night, Mahti was determined to try to drive the walker. She snuck into the cockpit to look it over, to see what she might need to try to ask Niner about. But she entered the cockpit of the walker and found every control labeled. Taking it as a sign, she hotwired the starter and drove it back up the hill with the ship and all of them on it, rattling upon the platform on the walker’s back.  
  
Niner had made his way in to help her keep it level. He didn’t take over, he just talked her through it.  
  
Cody was afraid Niki would be upset, as they made their unsteady ways back inside the walker.  
  
“I’m surprised you’re not mad,” Cody laughed.  
  
“Why? It’s exactly what I would have done,” Niki was liking Mahti.  
  
–  
  
Once they reached the mission, Mahti told the villagers in their language to fill up the walker’s tank. She was already planning her next daring escape. She wasn’t giving up her property without a fight.  
  
“So how did they leave the world?” Niki was barely phased. She examined the walker. She could take it back at any time she wanted when the ‘Intelligence Service’ arrived with a better armed ship. For the time being, Mahti was keeping it safe as far as she was concerned.  
  
Cody needed the chance to examine it archaeologically to look for clues, so he and Niki walked it over in a little survey.  
  
Niki was looking at all the ceilings for some reason.  
  
“There is no way to know where they flew to. No cameras out here to record what direction they even went in. The trail goes cold. It’s definitely quality smuggling,” Cody was pleasantly surprised by the level of organization displayed by Organa’s vanity revolution. “If what Rau said is accurate, Wolffe and Gregor seem to have been operating as agents for the Rebellion. I wonder if ‘Gregor’ isn’t Rex in disguise. Gregor was pretty brain damaged. These stories about him seem unreal.”  
  
“Why are we wasting time staying here. We have what we came for, no one knows where they went,” Niki checked a few drawers.  
  
Cody swiveled a chair, “Will you relax? These people are friends. If we can help them to succeed, we should.”  
  
“By bringing weapons into a community that has none? As soon as Wolffe’s little friend gets her hands on this walker, she’s going to take right over, mark my words,” Niki had seen an angle that Cody realized was possible, even probable. Escalation was almost inevitable. As was ambition. The world could be thrown off balance easily.  
  
“Well, they haven’t mentioned Rex. We don’t know all of the names they’ve been using. For all we know, Alis might have been here.”  
  
Niner cocked his head, “Alis as in baby Alis? Your wife’s little girl?” He hadn’t realized she wasn’t with them. He just hadn’t met everybody in the colony yet.  
  
“Fine!” Niki always over-used the word ‘fine’ when she was emotionally overwhelmed. She hated feeling like no one was really listening to her. Something really didn’t feel right.  
  
Cody the former ISB interrogator, was surprisingly clumsy about interpreting her tells, though he was aware of them.  
  
Niki realized she might be underestimating his simplicity. His detectable range of emotion was low, he was bad at interpreting because his emotional vocabulary was shit. Everything with him was just words to her, distinctions without a difference. Feelings were stronger because they were more important.  
  
“Would you please give me a minute alone? See what our friend wants to tell us,” Niki knew that was probably all she needed. The air felt too close in there. Niki needed some time to herself. It bothered her that she couldn’t just play through it. She had known all these years, or at least had an idea where Wolffe had gone. She could have said anything at any time and they could have been doing this sooner. Maybe even have found him. But she hadn’t spoken up, she’d been so sure he’d died. She knew it was her fault they were so far behind. Niki was so unused to regrets or apologies that the whole damn thing had left her adrift. She’d always been so sure that if he lived, Wolffe would let nothing stop him until he found her. She was just so damned sure. She didn’t know what to do with these feelings that demanded they be felt, but they were foaming up out of her like an unexpected chemical reaction.  
  
She had a bad feeling about all of this. 

–  
  
Cody and Niner wandered to find Mahti. Cody had his single pistol as a sidearm. Niner decided his weapon of choice had to be eye catching. So he toted a Z-6. Mahti would have to notice that.  
  
She was sharing a meal in a little makeshift cantina with the displaced villagers. Cody and Niner were offered, so they thanked some of the local species that was doing the cooking. Then they tucked in to what was only stew and Imperial issue white bread. It wasn’t terrible.  
  
Cody asked Mahti jovially, “So tell me some stories about Biggus here? And Wolffe if you have any,” he gave Niner a face that told him to observe carefully.  
  
Mahti wondered who they were really and why they’d come. Their stories seemed shaky once she thought of it.  
  
“I thought you guys were just Outer Rim castoffs, that’s what you get out here. But then it turns out that you guys were hiding? At least, that’s what you said, right Biggus?” Mahti was testing them. She had never confirmed what she’d asked about, she had deduced it.  
  
“Well, I can’t really talk about it, you understand,” Niner hedged.  
  
Mahti went on, “Beardy never talked much. Wasn’t it after he died that you two finally decided to leave world?”  
  
“Ah, yes, that was the catalyst,” Niner cringed internally. That was a weird phrase. He was afraid he sounded as if he was acting.  
  
Mahti was sure of it now. This guy sounded nothing like Gregor.  
  
“Ah, yes, Beardy,” Cody remembered the holo image from the droid. Rex had an impossibly perfect white beard.  
  
“Oh yeah, what did Wolffe say he died of, Biggus? Diarrhea?” Mahti asked, as grabbed another helping of bread.  
  
Cody stifled a laugh. This might be his best case scenario. He wouldn’t have to tell Lina that Rex had anything to do with it. And it would seem heroic as he was just trying to save Rex some dignity.  
  
Mahti sat herself next to Cody like a widow visiting a new guy. She wasn’t sure how she could know it, but she was somehow sure he was the guy with the higher pay grade.  
  
Niner resolved to get some flashy jewelry to get more attention. The rotary blaster cannon wasn’t working.  
  
“So what ever happened to that kid that time?” Mahti asked Niner directly.  
  
Niner felt really put on the spot. “Uh...”  
  
“I was worried maybe you were up to no good with her. But the other people around say they’ve seen you with her. She looked okay,” Mahti asked directly.  
  
Cody interjected, “About yea high?” He gestured. “Blonde hair?”  
  
“I only saw her for a second that night, but I just thought I’d ask,” she looked at Cody as if she didn’t trust his intentions, suddenly. “Next time we saw you she was gone,” Mahti revealed. “Who was she?” she directed at Niner. Most girls on Seelos ended up there by trick or by force.  
  
“My daughter,” Cody answered. “We lost contact with her some years ago. Now, we need to find her.”  
  
“She doesn’t look much like you. How do I know this isn’t some kind of tafficking thing? Or maybe she’s your wife and you don’t like that she ran away,” Mahti was suddenly a little uncomfortable. The Imperials had said the girl was kidnapped. Cody seemed to fit her idea of the template as a potentially murderous rich husband. Mahti didn’t want any trouble. “She hasn’t come back here for certain. You might want to try one of the Imperial station spaceports. They sometimes book passage off world. You can only go in there if you’re human, but she’d have had no problem.” Mahti seemed almost sad to be telling them this. As if going through the motions. Unsurprised. Apparently there was property they’d come to retrieve.  
  
\--

  


Niki sentimentally looked at the dash panel in the head of the walker. The handwriting labeling everything. It had been the same when Wolffe used to leave her notes back on Coruscant.  
  
She could barely read then, but she loved getting them. They were funny. A nice feeling came from seeing the familiar letter forms. She found herself laughing about the remnants of his life there. No matter what Wolffe had to work with, he always managed to be so like himself.  
  
Niki got up to go and grabbed her bag. She could have worn a belt with pouches, like half the galaxy, but Niki thought that interfered with the silhouette of her body. Also they were heavy as. She liked to be able to move.  
  
She exited the walker and intended to just go to the ship to sleep. The ‘Intelligence Service’ would be there any time.  
  
Then something caught her eye far in the distant night sky, just the tiniest twinkle. Then she heard the screaming noise of a TIE fighter coming through the atmosphere overhead.  
  
\--  
  
Suddenly Cody felt a chill. Similar to that he’d felt in the presence of his old master. Similar, but not the same. A different shade of the same color.  
  
He stood suddenly and ordered Mahti, “Warn everyone, spread the word, get everyone on that walker and GO!”  
  
Mahti would have been angry if she weren’t so scared. She couldn’t tell how, but she could feel it too, something wicked was coming.  
  
Kenobi had explained it that different kinds of Dark Side effects had different radii attached to the individual emitting them.  
  
Cody felt like a cyclone of noxious fumes were around them. Like clouds of mist that bubbled forth like vapor off of carbonite. As with carbonite, Cody felt frozen. Someone was there, commanding him to obey.  
  
Cody felt compelled to walk out into the earthen main street to meet his adversary. Not by a type of control, but by a realization. Vader was there.  
  
Then he saw it. Saber drawn.  
  
Cody knew the creature was Force sensitive, he was familiar with what the presence felt like due to extensive experience with Dark Side wielders. Cody knew that they often read not only feelings but direct thoughts. So Cody communicated to let it know he was aware that was happening. He knew for a time, he could keep his thoughts under control.  
  
“None of these people have done anything to you,” Cody tried not to notice the people evacuating. He was drawing Vader’s attention. But he felt something too. Not anger. Confusion.  
  
It hissed at Cody like a coiled mechanical serpent, “Not the one I was expecting. But you’ll do.”  
  
Niner came out the cantina doors into the street and stopped dead. This was not what he signed on for, he thought.  
  
Vader made a gesture and pulled the weapon from Niner’s hands and tossed it away up the street. It had provided enough distraction that Cody could jump away from Vader, out of range of the blade.  
  
\--  
  
Niki pulled out a mirror with a decent light. Then her scalpel. She took a deep breath. Then cut.  
  
\--  
The monks went out to try to slow Vader down. They were able to get in a few hits with small electrostaffs. But mostly, it threw them off like ripples in a puddle. Vader reached a hand at Cody’s shuttle and a blade crumpled.  
  
Everywhere, people ran, screaming in terror.  
  
\--

Niki groped on the ground and found the rotary cannon. It was heavy and she was small. So she was forced to half drag it. The air hissed as it entered and left her lungs. Her own warm blood dripping down her chest.   
  
As Vader sensed her behind it, it did not even turn to acknowledge her as a threat. It merely did the Force equivalent of swatting her like a fly. It emitted a Force grip tight around her upper throat.  
  
Vader raised the saber and brought it down towards Cody. Cody jumped out of the way and fired some shots. Vader raised it again, barely needing to move to stay ahead. Cody shot at Vader, who swiped his weapon and sent the bolt right back into Niner’s chest.  
  
Suddenly, a barrage of blasts hit the Vader creature in the back of the feet a few dozen times turning them into cheese. Its feet collapsed underneath it and it fell over onto its face.  
  
It fell, still breathing.  
  
Niki appeared behind it when it fell. She stood, smearing bacta onto her bloody neck and dropping the blaster cannon. Then she pulled the trachea tube out and began to heal.   
  
Smoke rose from the cyborg.   
  
Cody looked at Niki.  
  
Cody lunged towards Niner and drew a vial of serum from his belt pouch. He shot Niner in the neck, wincing at the thought of the needle entering his brother’s skin.  
  
Niner coughed up blood. In a few breaths, he was well.  
  
Suddenly, Niner was picked up by the Force and thrown across the street. His broken neck healed within an instant. They realized Vader was only stunned. Niki, Cody, and Niner all fired shots at Vader to disorient it. They got up and turned away, firing behind them, only to have the bolts deflected by the cyborg, crawling its way towards them.  
  
“Run!” Cody yelled to his pack, although they didn’t need to hear it to know.  
  
Just in time, the “Intelligence Service” arrived, still wearing their freight company uniforms.  
  
“Pickup?” Sh’ehn joked. He saw the cyborg crawling at them, “Whoa!”

–  
  
To combat a wounded Force wielder, even normals without much sensitivity to it had to get out of range of their focused thoughts. The ship and pulled it into hyperspace at first chance.   
  
Cody, Niner and Niki were covered in blood and dirt, but otherwise fine.  
  
Cody did his best to focus his thoughts so that Vader hadn’t been able to find anything. Still, like in any combat involving a dark Force wielder, horrible memories were made to pound at his head in waves. Whatever ones they could locate in the mere seconds they connected. Since emotions were key to using the Dark Side, pain was easy for them to find.  
  
What Force wielders never expected, Cody knew, was that the normals on the other end of the exchange could analyze and learn from them too. Cody thought he detected a rather peculiar personal hatred in the things selected from his memories. He felt dizzy and nauseous for a bit. But he focused on his breathing until it abated, until it was muffled like surface shelling heard from an underground bunker, far, far away.  
  
Niner attended to Niki. She wasn’t able to talk for a bit while the bacta was working. Cody thought that would be a safe time to approach her.  
  
“It was very brave, what you did there. You saved all of us. I have no right to ask more of you, but let’s just leave the walker okay?”  
  
Niki made a face like she was unimpressed.  
  
“It looks like there will be no negotiating with this guy for me. I honestly don’t know what I did,” Cody admitted. It was weird, he didn’t like to talk about feelings, normally. “Are you feeling any symptoms?”  
  
Niki merely shook her head. She didn’t admit it, but she had felt like she was being fed thoughts like from a long forgotten memory of a nourishing breast in a throat. Every cell in her body called out for the familiar feeling of love and sang for her to embrace it. But Niki hadn’t been fooled for a moment. Her mother-wet nurse, aka the first person she could remember, had been the first person to ever betray her. Starving her, smacking her to make her cry so she could earn more money begging. The cold reality of that had always been enough to shock Niki back to wakefulness when she was tempted to give in to unconsciousness.  
  
She smiled thinking to herself alone, or so she thought.  
  
–  
  
Cody went to where his foster sons were standing around talking with the droid. He asked, “Is this the one?”  
  
Stabbi realized he’d been impolite, “Oh yeah, Cody this here is...”  
  
Before he could finish the sentence, the droid was shot at the neck.  
  
“That was abrupt!” Goran reacted loudly.  
  
Cody didn’t explain himself, but he didn’t need the thing around telling tales, “You have no idea who he might be working for.”  
  
\--  
  
Mahti had loaded the people onto the walker, tromped out of harm’s way. She went to Kwymartown where they set up a new Whills mission. They removed the landing platform and it allowed the town to receive space traffic again. It became quite the little depot. They had a school that taught reading to anyone who wanted to come and learn. Mahti never forgot what made the difference for her when she arrived on that world with nothing. Her little bit of education.


End file.
